Jasmine L. Tyler, Deputy Director, National Affairs
On June 1, 2011, the U.S. Sentencing Commission held a public hearing on the retroactive application of the Fair Sentencing Act, which Congress passed in 2010 and narrowed a decades-old disparity in federal sentencing between crack cocaine and powder cocaine. If the Commission decides to apply the sentencing guideline changes retroactive, as many as 12,000 people in federal prison could be released early, saving taxpayers millions of dollars.