The election last November stripped the Democrats of power at every level of federal authority, and with Donald Trump making law-and-order a key priority in his campaign, one had to expect some rapid consequences.

While President Barack Obama was ending his term in office, he instituted a clemency initiative, commuting more inmates than the last 11 presidents combined.Obama commuted terms for 1,176 people, including 395 serving life sentences - mostly for drug offenses - and pardoned a total of 148 others for crimes ranging from felony firearm possession to involuntary manslaughter."We all make mistakes. We have to take responsibility and learn from those mistakes," Obama wrote in a Nov. 22, 2016, Facebook post. "And we as a society have to make sure that people who do take responsibility for their mistakes are able to earn a second chance to contribute to our communities and our country. It's the right thing to do."The Fair Sentencing Act which Obama signed into law in August 2010 carried wide consequences for the judiciary. Prosecutors pursued fewer crack cocaine charges in federal court and the changes also retroactively allowed about 7,750 crack offenders to seek reduced sentences.Cases in which nonviolent offenders had met criteria, such as getting an education and earning time off for good behavior while incarcerated, were re-examined, and many nonviolent offenders were released years early.Thirty years ago, President Ronald Reagan had pushed law enforcement to focus on drug arrests. Congress responded by passing the Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1986, which created mandatory minimum sentences for drug trafficking. In a September 1986 speech, Reagan called crack cocaine an "epidemic" in the black community."It is an explosively destructive and often lethal substance, which is crushing its users. It is an uncontrolled fire," Reagan said.Today it is still an epidemic. The CDC reported more than 47,000 people died from drug overdoses in 2014. Drugs are the leading cause of accidental death in this country, surpassing shooting deaths and fatal traffic accidents. Opioids are involved in 61 percent of all drug overdose deaths.Last Friday, Attorney General Jeff Sessions hearkened back to the Reagan days by laying out a policy of strict enforcement, ordering federal prosecutors to "charge and pursue the most serious, readily provable offense."The new strategy rolls back the Obama-era policies on low-level drug crimes and the "Smart on Crime" initiative established by one of Sessions' predecessors and Obama's AG, Eric Holder.Now, if prosecutors wish to pursue lesser charges for these low-level crimes, they will need to obtain approval for the exception from a U.S. attorney, assistant attorney general or another supervisor."This policy affirms our responsibility to enforce the law, is moral and just, and produces consistency. This policy fully utilizes the tools Congress has given us," Sessions stated in his memo sent to thousands of assistant U.S. attorneys. "By definition, the most serious offenses are those that carry the most substantial guidelines sentence, including mandatory minimum sentences."What we hope to see is a reduction in the recidivism rate, whereby prisoners who, after release, commit a new offense or violate parole, resulting in arrest, incarceration or both. According to the National Institute of Justice, about two-thirds (67.8 percent) of released prisoners were rearrested within three years of release and about three-quarters (76.6 percent) of released prisoners were rearrested within five years.A study by the U.S. Sentencing Commission concerning recidivism of federal offenders showed that one-half of federal drug trafficking offenders were rearrested over an eight-year follow-up period.Statistics vary widely in the recidivism rate between state and federal drug trafficking offenders. Over three-fourths (76.9 percent) of state drug offenders released from state prison were rearrested within five years, compared with 41.9 percent of federal drug trafficking offenders released over the same five-year period.Pennsylvania, to its credit, has seen declines in its recidivism rate, thanks to strategies that stress proactive crime initiatives, good policing and specialty courts.Since sentences are dictated based on drug type and quantity, drug trafficking offenders are the ones in the crosshairs of last Friday's decision by AG Sessions. Under a new administration, the street drug epidemic which President Reagan called an "uncontrolled fire" in 1986 will now be fought with a renewed vigor three decades later.By Jim Zbick |

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