The Justice Department is preparing to release about 6,000 prison inmates early, the largest one-time release of federal offenders in U.S. history, according to The Washington Post.

The nationwide releases, scheduled between Oct. 30 and Nov. 2, are part of a broad shift in the way the United States’ criminal justice system sentences drug-related criminals. The shift represents attempts to reverse harsh “War On Drugs”-era policies that many argue have led to overcrowded prisons and lopsidedly destructive effects on minority communities over the past few decades.

These releases come after the U.S. Sentencing Commission’s retroactive easing of federal guidelines for drug sentencing, which could mean eventual early releases for around 46,000 of the country’s 100,000 drug-related federal offenders.

The restructuring underway is ambitious, knocking an average of two years off many sentences and ordering federal prosecutors to seek lower charges in the future for small-time offenders not affiliated with gangs. A bipartisan reform bill proposed earlier this month would also reduce mandatory minimums for drug offenders and allow judges more case-by-case discretion.

Still, these reforms only scrape the surface of the deep structural damage that drug war policies have inflicted on many American communities.

These policies have been in effect across generations, long enough to set cycles in motion that perpetuate the drug trade; turning prisons into gang recruiting grounds, disadvantaging ex-cons in the job market and destabilizing inmates’ families, with their kids five times as likely as their peers to be imprisoned at some point.

While scaling back stiff federal drug sentences is a move in the right direction, a meaningful solution to the incarceration crisis should continue to address the local levels through which people enter the system, as well as the root issues incarceration originally aimed to solve.

The DOJ’s wide demand that its prosecutors soften penalties on low-level offenders is one thing, but careful implementation of similar policies by state and local attorneys will help make more progress in specific urban communities.

It’s also important to make local police a part of the solution. The “War On Drugs” has historically encouraged aggressive tactics and arrest-whoever-we-can, charge-whoever-we-can mentalities in urban police departments, like Baltimore’s — tactics that serve to flood the justice system with low-level offenders.

Cutting overtime pay incentives that encourage cops to chase smaller loitering and possession charges is only one example of how police departments can reprioritize.

Most crucial to a revolution against the incarceration state is addressing the economic and social causes at the root of urban drug crime.

One can argue that the drug trade became the roaring business it is today partly because of the economic vacuum created by poor economic prospects in at-risk communities. The drug trade simply became the most viable economic sector for many of the young people who would end up behind bars.

Steering communities away from the drug trade then becomes an economic endeavor. State, city and federal governments already spend so many tax dollars prosecuting and incarcerating drug-offenders — some of those funds should be reallocated toward job-training programs, expanding drug treatment court programs and subsidizing economic redevelopment programs that can gainfully employ ex-cons and young, at-risk men.

In many ways, it’s a staggering challenge to move past the U.S.’s mass incarceration culture — laws must be rewritten, systems rewired and entire communities essentially rebuilt from the ground up. However, if America is to dismantle the legacy of injustice created by its flawed policies, it’s a challenge the country must face.

Thomas Beckley-Forest is a sophomore newspaper and online journalism major. His column appears weekly. He can be reached at tjbeckle@syr.edu.

Published on October 12, 2015 at 11:43 pm