In one of his final acts in the White House, President Joe Biden has commuted the sentences of 37 people with federal death-row convictions to life sentences without parole, including two in Georgia.

Groups working on justice-system reform have said it's a start, but as Biden's last days in office approach, they think clemency should be extended to others serving long sentences because of outdated policies.

Zoë Towns, executive director of the group FWD.us, pointed to changes in laws and sentencing practices that make many older sentences inconsistent with today's standards.

"Well, there's actually been quite a few laws that have changed and a lot of practice that has changed in the last 15 years," she said, "based on just the huge shift in public opinion about mass incarceration - just the harms of long sentences."

Earlier this month, Biden also granted clemency to nearly 1,500 people in a single day, including dozens in Georgia. Some are sentence reductions for people on home confinement during the COVID-19 pandemic, and pardons for 39 individuals convicted of nonviolent crimes.

Towns said unequal sentencing stems from policies introduced during the war on drugs in the 1990s. While today's laws no longer impose the same harsh penalties for similar crimes, many people sentenced back then remain behind bars.

She noted that these sentences alone underscore the need for clemency.

"One in eight people who are in prison in the United States are incarcerated in the federal system," she said. "There are thousands of people - nearly 200,000 people - who have been in that system who are serving extremely long sentences, and they need attention."

Polling by FWD.us found that more than 80% of voters support expanding clemency, with many Americans having direct experience with incarceration in their families. Towns said governors can act as well, citing state-level successes such as Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt's mass clemency initiatives, as evidence of such reforms.

A bill introduced by Kentucky lawmakers would increase alternatives to prison or jail for parents convicted of nonviolent offenses.

Most of the women and men in Kentucky's prisons and jails are also parents of young children.

Amanda Hall, senior director of national campaigns for the advocacy group Dream.org, who was separated from her child while incarcerated, said her son, who is now in college, testified before the Kentucky legislature about how being ripped from his mother left a lifelong imprint.

"When my son spoke, he said that he will never forget the day that I was arrested, and how that has literally changed his whole life," Hall recounted.

Around 12% of kids in the Commonwealth have an incarcerated parent, one of the highest rates in the nation. Considered an Adverse Childhood Experience, research has linked parental incarceration to higher rates of depression, substance abuse, decreased educational outcomes and homelessness among kids.

Hall explained alternatives to incarceration are aimed at addressing the root causes and conditions of why a crime was committed and work with families to prevent unlawful actions from happening again.

"It can be things like parenting classes and/or mental health or substance use disorder programming," Hall outlined. "It can be even having a case manager to try to help get people vocational training."

Cortney Downs, chief innovation officer for the nonprofit Kentucky Youth Advocates, said she believes the bill strikes a balance between personal accountability and keeping families together. She noted the effects of incarceration can be far-reaching and, in many cases, end up punishing children, who may struggle to have their basic needs met when a parent is imprisoned.

"Being incarcerated for even a short period of time can lead to job loss," Downs pointed out. "It can create barriers to securing a job in the future and it can also exacerbate financial hardships for families, especially if parents are having to pay court fines and fees or restitution."

Children of incarcerated parents often face an immediate threat of poverty. According to one advocacy group, nearly 50% of such children face frequent socioeconomic hardship.

More than 60 counties in Pennsylvania have a shortage of public defenders for low-income residents who need these services.

This Friday in Pittsburgh, a recruitment event takes place to help fill jobs for public defenders' offices statewide. The University of Pittsburgh School of Law cohosts the statewide Career Day event with the Public Defender Association of Pennsylvania, to help connect law students from any law school with potential jobs.

Megan Lovett, director of public interest and pro bono initiatives at the university, said so far, they have 50 or more applications, for internships and attorney positions.

"We've had students that interviewed at this fair last year that ended up getting jobs in a county that maybe they wouldn't have considered before, and a county that may have had trouble recruiting from the law student population," Lovett reported.

She hopes like last year, counties across the state will see applicants from this event. Each year, public defenders' offices handle cases which would normally require more than 1,200 full-time attorneys but only about 850 are working statewide.

Andrew Capone, assistant director of training for the Public Defender Association of Pennsylvania, said he will be at the career fair, connecting law schools and individuals with these job opportunities. He argued a lack of state funding limits public defenders' offices, which drives the current shortage. But legislation passed last year should ensure indigent defense services for those who can't afford representation.

"Pennsylvania was, up until last year, one of the only two states in the country that did not fund a public defender office; they left it to the counties," Capone pointed out. "Since that time, Governor Shapiro has given what he and I refer to as a 'down payment' on statewide indigent defense."

Capone said Gov. Josh Shapiro allocated $7.5 million in the state budget, but divided among 67 counties, the effect is minimal, funding perhaps one additional attorney or staff member per office.

Reducing crime and improving public safety are among this year's priorities for New Mexico's governor, who has called the state's crime rate "out of control."

In her annual address to the Legislature last month, Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham blamed much of the crime problem on repeat offenders.

Lisel Petis, resident senior fellow for criminal justice and civil liberties at the conservative public policy think tank R Street Institute, said recidivism is reduced when court cases are quickly resolved.

"The chances of getting caught deter crime way more than the severity of the punishment should they get caught," Petis asserted. "We're seeing kind of record low clearance rates across the nation right now, so people are feeling that they're probably not going to get caught."

The Department of Justice has reported New Mexico's violent crime rate as twice the national average. Lujan Grisham called on lawmakers to enact stronger penalties for convicted felons who use firearms in the commission of a crime. But an editorial on the website ErrorsOfEnchantment.com argued the Governor must also propose and push legislative ideas to boost the state's low workforce participation rate.

The governor also wants to see updates to criminal competency laws to ensure individuals repeatedly cycling through New Mexico's courts receive treatment instead of being released.

Petis argued such policies offer solutions because repeat offenders often do not have stable jobs, they suffer from mental, behavioral or physical disabilities or they are homeless.

"How do you better address a mental health crisis, how do you better address a substance-use disorder? Because just throwing somebody in jail, 95, 99% of people are going to get back out of jail," Petis explained. "If you have not addressed those issues, they're going to come back out and create more problems."

Petis emphasized the majority of people released on bail do not commit another crime but those who are risk-averse may not be deterred. She added most people who commit crimes have not read the laws and do not know what the punishment might look like.


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