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A comment on U.S. Incarceration and Crime Rates Continue to Fall in Tandem. Parent comment

Re:U.S. Incarceration and Crime Rates Continue to Fall in Ta... by masklinn on Friday December 30, 2016 @01:53PM (#13286295)
> If we ever decriminalize Marijuana at the Federal level, that seems to me like it would mean millions of prisoners held for offenses involving only that drug would need to be set free.

Decriminalisation isn't necessarily retroactive, that it's now legal or less illegal doesn't mean it was at the time of conviction.

For instance despite the Labouchere Amendment ("gross indencency") having been mostly repealed in 1967, Turing legally remained a criminal until his pardon in 2013.

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Re:U.S. Incarceration and Crime Rates Continue to Fall in Ta... by eterm on Friday December 30, 2016 @02:13PM (#13286526)
Not just Turing, people still alive are still under great injustice, because it was only Turing who received a pardon. Pardons should have been provided to everyone convicted under those laws.
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Re:U.S. Incarceration and Crime Rates Continue to Fall in Ta... by DanBC on Friday December 30, 2016 @06:27PM (#13288411)
They are going to be pardoned.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-37711518

> Gay and bisexual men convicted of now-abolished sexual offences in England and Wales are to receive posthumous pardons, the government has announced.

> Thousands of living men convicted over consensual same-sex relationships will also be eligible for the pardon.

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Re:U.S. Incarceration and Crime Rates Continue to Fall in Ta... by masklinn on Friday December 30, 2016 @02:15PM (#13286534)
Completely true.
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Re:U.S. Incarceration and Crime Rates Continue to Fall in Ta... by ClayFerguson on Friday December 30, 2016 @04:43PM (#13287720)
I predict that when (not if, but when) the Federal Gov finally does make Marijuana fully legal, they will do whatever is required to make it retroactive. Even if it takes an amendment to the constitution specifically for this purpose it will need to be done, and will be considered minor paperwork. There will be no debate about whether it needs to be done. Who would argue against it? Perhaps only those Judges who handed down harsh sentences, because THEY are the individuals who morally deserve to be punished, and THEY are the ones who would go to jail if this were a just world.
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