Sunday, December 06, 2015
Sunday Reflection: Impatient
In today's Washington Post, Sari Horwitz has a wonderful and lengthy story about the Obama administration's fitful efforts to end the War on Drugs and undo some of its harm. Much of the story is (appropriately) about the primary administration actors, but the piece ends like this:
In July, Obama gave
his first major criminal justice speech to a crowd of more than 3,000 at
the NAACP convention in Philadelphia, saying “mass incarceration makes
our entire country worse off, and we need to do something about it.” The
next day he became the first sitting president to visit a federal
prison by traveling to El Reno Federal Correctional Institution in
Oklahoma.
But thousands of inmates with harsh sentences tied to the war on drugs, some with life without parole, are still waiting for relief in cramped prison cells. Their only hope is Obama’s unique clemency power. And time is running out.
But thousands of inmates with harsh sentences tied to the war on drugs, some with life without parole, are still waiting for relief in cramped prison cells. Their only hope is Obama’s unique clemency power. And time is running out.
The caller is Ronald Blount, 52, a former crack addict who was convicted of conspiracy to sell crack cocaine and given a life sentence in federal prison. He’s been there for 16 years.
“Every Friday morning, Ronald Blount calls me on the phone and I have to tell him nothing has happened,” Osler said. “It breaks my heart. I have to tell him, not only that he has gone another week, but that everyone has. That the entire system has failed for another week.”
“Something about that call gives me an urgency that I wish the president felt,” Osler said. “I wish he would take a call from a prisoner every Friday and then decide if it’s worth putting this off for another week, another month, another year.”
Holder says he thinks “people just need to be patient.”
“He has talked about these issues in ways that no other president ever has,” Holder said. “He wants to use the power of his office and his persuasive abilities to get Congress to pass legislation that would put into law the changes that we have made.”
“I think the test will ultimately be, where do we stand at the end of the president’s term opposed to where do we stand now? He still has months to go.”
The story makes me seem… well, impatient. And I am. When an overloaded bureaucracy says "trust us, we will get around to this," I don't believe it.
As many of you know, the desire to make clemency real again is a faith imperative for me; mercy must be a part of the system for it to be moral. This is the best chance we will have for reviving this Constitutional power, and it is slipping away as the administration takes credit for "talking about these issues."
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Mark, I am a friend of Dr. Craig Anderson. I actually work for him - yet still find a way to call him friend. Smiling big here. He introduced me to this blog. He introduced me to the book Change of Heart by Jeanne Bishop. This seems to be the perfect post to take a minute and say I appreciate all you do. The world needs more people fighting for the people who need fighting for. There is a sad imbalance there as I see it. People like you and Jeanne give me hope. You strengthen my Christianity. Keep taking those Friday phone calls please. Keep playing full court press. Thank you.
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