From [HERE] During his campaign, President Joe Biden pledged repeatedly to reduce the country’s prison population, which, because of racist policing and sentencing laws, is disproportionately composed of people of color. At one point, he said his administration could cut the number of incarcerated people by more than half, largely by investing in alternatives to prisons. Later he said he didn’t want to be bound by a percentage, but he reiterated that he hoped to drastically lower the number of people locked up.

But six months into his term, those promises are ringing hollow. The number of people in federal prisons is growing. And Biden’s legal team recently announced that thousands of people who were released early from federal prisons last year to slow the spread of the coronavirus could be forced to return again after the pandemic ends.

“This is the most telling sign yet that this administration has criminal justice low on its list of priorities, despite the campaign promises to the contrary,” Rachel Barkow, an NYU law professor who served on the US Sentencing Commission under President Barack Obama, wrote on Twitterafter the news broke. “I honestly don’t know how anyone who cares about criminal justice reform and works in this administration can stand by and let this happen.” [MORE]