Notable reviews from Reason on Prez Biden’s uninspired criminal justice record
“What Happened to Biden’s Ambitious Criminal Justice Reform Plans?: Joe Biden ran on some good ideas to reform policing and incarceration, which he mostly failed to deliver.”
To win the Democratic primaries four years ago, Joe Biden had to take a left turn on criminal justice, offering voters a smorgasbord of reforms to a carceral system he had helped build over his decades as a tough-on-crime senator. As Biden’s presidency sputters to an end, the White House has made strides on some of those goals but failed to deliver on many others.
“Biden Failed To Deescalate the Drug War: Though he commuted some drug offenders’ sentences, Biden never delivered on the rest of his drug reform promises.”
When he was hired for his current position, Joe Biden set ambitious goals for himself on the drug policy front. He promised to “eliminate mandatory minimums”; “end, once and for all, the federal crack and powder cocaine disparity”; “decriminalize the use of cannabis and automatically expunge all prior cannabis use convictions”; and “use the president’s clemency power to secure the release of individuals facing unduly long sentences for certain non-violent and drug crimes.” As president, Biden had the unilateral power to accomplish just one of these five things. Not coincidentally, that is the only action item on which he made progress after starting work in January 2021.