Of the roughly 6,000 federal prisoners the U.S. Department of Justice is set to release as part of the largest ever one-time release of federal prisoners, 39 of them are from Washington, according to the Bureau of Prisons.
The releases come after a move last year by the U.S. Sentencing Commission, which sets sentencing policies for federal crimes, to reduce the potential punishment for future drug offenders. The agency later made the sentencing policy changes apply retroactively.
Those 6,000 men and women are set to be released by the end of the month, according to The Associated Press.
From more than 17,000 cases, 13,000 saw successful applications for reduced sentences under new sentencing guidelines approved last year, according to the U.S. Sentencing Commission, an independent panel that’s part of the judiciary.
The changes essentially reduced the mandatory minimum penalties for different drug trafficking crimes.
The commission isn’t releasing information about the individual prisoners.
Also, where crimes originate and the state they’re tried in don’t always match, but looking at a set of federal cases in Washington with recent motions shows many prisoners sentenced in this state were tried in the Eastern District and were originally put away for a mix of different drug violations.
Emily Langley, a spokeswoman at the U.S. Attorney’s Office for Washington’s Western District, said many of those being granted early release back into the state will be deported shortly after.
Of the 13,000 cases nationwide where a judge agreed to a reduced sentence, about 31 percent involved methamphetamine. Powder cocaine came in second at 27 percent of the cases, followed by crack cocaine at 20 percent, according to the commission.
Nine percent were for marijuana, about 8 percent for heroin and about 5 percent for other drugs.
The commission’s changes, along with the Obama administration’s moves to roll back mandatory minimum sentences, joins growing national efforts to rethink punishments for a drug offender population that amounts to roughly half of all federal inmates.
There’s also a bipartisan bill working through the Senate that would give judges more say in sentencing and allow them to reduce penalties for nonviolent offenders. A similar bill is expected in the House.
Reform advocates have long criticized sentencing disparities rooted in 1980s War on Drugs legislation.
In 1980, the federal prison population was less than 25,000. Today, it is more than 200,000. The prison system consumes about a third of the Justice Department’s budget.
According to the commission, of the 17,000 cases where convicts applied for changed sentences, most of the changed sentences were for cases from after 2010.
Five of the oldest cases, from 1989, saw reduced sentences.
The changes in the sentencing guidelines will likely lead to more people released from prison. The commission’s analysis of the available data found more than 51,000 people sentenced to federal prison from 1991 to 2014 may be eligible for a reduced sentence.
The average sentence for more than 46,000 of those offenders — the ones who couldn’t be released until on or after Nov. 1 — is 133 months, the commission said.
Among the cases where people were granted shorter sentences, the group from Washington saw an average drop in prison time of about 1 1/2 years.
The commission also projected another 8,550 may be eligible for early release November 2016.
Information from The Associated Press was used in this report.
