25 - LIFE

"AS recently as last week the white house directed the usjd to act on relief for prisoners who have been serving extraordinary amounts of time on the premise of the crack law. congress are now in the process of reducing the penalty from a 100 to 1 ratio to a 1 to 1 equal to normal existing laws regarding crack in its natural form of powder cocaine. for over 20yrs the public has been lobbying for this transition and it has now come to fruition on the back of a decision congress made a while ago when they decided not to expand the penalty's for the drug known as crystal meth--a drug that has been destroying white communities all across the united states at a rate equal to the explosion of crack in the 1980's. congress decided that to increase the penalty for this drug would only fill the prisons up with addicts, people who need help and would most likely not even reach there intended targets -- the people who supply these drugs! due to that moral decision they had to go back and address the crack law which disproportionately affected blacks. but now they have finally agreed to try to fix a terrible wrong done to a segment of this nation who has faced more wrongs than any one distinct group of people should ever have had to deal with. what vehicles are they going to put in place to help these victims? there are going to be thousands of prisoners released all across the usa who will be friendless, jobless, torn from family, and bitter at having been locked up from 15to20yrs for no more than 20grams of crack. if our communities backed by the local and federal governments don't get involved in making a way to help these people then what they are waiting for is nothing other than tragedy. there needs to be a strategy put together now to welcome these victims back into the community without ostracizing them for there past or present problems. the people who are going to be living and working daily with most of these victims should take the initiative to help include these people in activities in the community so that they will feel needed and take as much pride in it as everyone else who already has a place in society. there may be a lot of different views from a lot of different people but hopefully the overall discussion will be about helping these people overcome the adversity that they have endured!!!!!!!!"
DARNELL JONES