Crack sentence reform scare tactics

From Join Together:

U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) and others have rejected Attorney General Michael Mukasey's call for Congress to undo a recent decision by the U.S. Sentencing Commission, which retroactively reduced the penalties for crack-cocaine offenses, the Associated Press reported Feb. 12.

Mukasey requested that Congress pass a law to reverse the commission's decision before it goes into effect on March 3, claiming that the change in mandatory sentencing laws would result in the release of thousands of violent criminals. Representing the Justice Department, federal prosecutor Gretchen C.F. Shappert told the committee, "I am deeply concerned that the success we are experiencing in some of our most fragile, formerly crack-ravaged communities will be seriously interrupted if these communities are forced to absorb a disproportionate number of convicted felons."