2 chapters across the catalog
In 2010, President Barack Obama signed the Fair Sentencing Act, which reduced the crack-to-powder cocaine sentencing ratio from 100-to-1 to 18-to-1. Critics argue that maintaining any disparity at all was a failure of the administration and a concession to the private prison industry's need for a "pipeline" of inmates.
The 100-to-1 sentencing disparity between crack and powder cocaine is criticized as a "scam" that devastated Black communities. Although President Barack Obama signed the Fair Sentencing Act in 2010, it only reduced the ratio to 18-to-1 rather than eliminating it. The hosts argue that many long-serving members of Congress were present when these laws were originally enacted and remain complicit in the resulting social damage.
