For Inmates Released Under New Criminal Justice Reforms, 'Every Day Counts'

On Friday, Shipp returned his ankle monitor to a halfway house and became a free man. He was one of 3,100 people released early from federal custody that day as part of the First Step Act, a bipartisan bill signed by President Donald Trump in December that, among other things, increased sentence reductions for good behavior.

Even before that bill passed, Shipp had been scheduled to be released in November because of sentencing reform during the Obama administration.

“Some people might say, ‘that’s just a few months,’ but every day counts — every hour, every minute — because anything can happen at any time,” Shipp’s sister, Veda Ajamu, said. “That’s not a small piece for me.”

Shipp’s dramatic turn illustrates an increasing agreement among politicians and citizens that drug sentences in the United States, which have disproportionately put black men like him behind bars, have been too harsh.

“Under administrations of both parties, we’ve seen reductions to the sentencing guidelines, especially for drug sentences,” said Kevin Ring, the president of Families Against Mandatory Minimums. “I think there is consensus that we overreacted to the drug war of the ’80s and ’90s.”

Keith Williams, 41, was sentenced to more than 22 years in prison in 2006 after being accused of drug conspiracy, money laundering and gun possession. His release date was moved up by several years under the Obama-era reforms, and he was released from home confinement about two weeks early because of the First Step Act.

Those two weeks mattered. Under home confinement, Williams said, even the most mundane excursions had to be authorized.

“Now that the restraints have been cut, I can get up early and go to the gym, come home, wash my wife’s car, spend more time with my son and my daughter,” who are 17 and 14, he said.

Although the First Step Act went into effect in December, a provision of the act kept the Bureau of Prisons from releasing qualified inmates until the Justice Department created a tool to gauge their risk factors and match them with programs to reduce that risk. The tool was completed Friday.

The release quelled some advocates’ concerns that the Justice Department would drag its feet on the act, which the Trump administration hailed as one of its major legislative achievements but which Jeff Sessions, the former attorney general, had opposed. About 900 people released from federal custody Friday are subject to detainers, meaning they must serve any state sentences or, if they are in the country illegally, appear for immigration proceedings.

American opposition to mandatory minimum sentences has risen in recent years, but some also viewed them as unfair decades ago. Shipp’s case highlights the long-simmering disdain some judges have shown for the required sentences, which effectively remove their ability to use discretion.

At a sentencing hearing for Shipp in 1994, the judge, Marvin Aspen, said “it should seem clear to anyone who’s looked at the records in this case” that Shipp’s sentence should not be as long as the leader of the crew convicted of selling cocaine, who was also given a life sentence.

“The unfortunate scheme of sentencing that we have before us does not allow this court to make that distinction,” Aspen said, according to a transcript of the hearing.

Shipp on Saturday recalled the injustice he felt as he stood before the judge, who he said practically apologized for the sentence he was required to give.

“He himself knew that he shouldn’t be forced to do that,” Shipp said. “Me, standing there, hearing him say that and him not being able to do anything about it, it was numbing. I was numb.”

Shipp remains haunted by the memory of being confined to a prison cell while his father languished hundreds of miles away. Months earlier, his father had driven nine hours to visit him but had accidentally brought an expired license. He was devastated when he was denied entry to the facility, Shipp said.

“I felt that part of him being sick was my fault,” Shipp said. “He never could grasp how I was still in jail for the charges that I had gotten. He just didn’t get it. And I could never explain it to him because it’s something that I couldn’t grasp either.”

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

For Inmates Released Under New Criminal Justice Reforms, 'Every Day Counts'

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