Jason Hernandez went from being a prison drug dealer to dedicating his life to prison reform — Here's why he's fighting for mass clemency for non-violent crimes. » Subscribe to NowThis:
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HERNANDEZ: The warden walks in, and he says, ‘Are you Jason Hernandez?’ I said, ‘Yes, sir, I am.’ And he goes, ‘Well, I have an executive order from President Barack Obama.
I came from a family that wasn't of privilege in my community, there were no parks there were no swimming pools there were no activities to be involved in, the things that we got involved in were either gangs or drugs, and my older brother sold drugs as well.
In 1998 March 16 the federal government arrested me for conspiracy to distribute crack cocaine and other controlled substances. My crime did not involve gangs guns links to cartels murders or overdoses or anything to that extent. And with that I was sentenced to life without parole at that time crack cocaine was punished 100 times more severely than powder cocaine.
The majority of people sentenced for crack are Black or Latinx.
HERNANDEZ: 'Just as mass incarceration has destroyed our communities and incarcerated our people mass clemency can be used to reverse all this.'
Clemency is the act of shortening, pardoning, or commuting a sentence. Only the president can grant clemency for federal crimes.
HERNANDEZ: 'Clemency is basically an act of forgiveness. I started my own organization while I was in there called Crack Open the Door and I advocated for first time non-violent crack cocaine offenders serving life without parole. So what I wanted to do with crack open the door was humanize us, the statistics. Everybody knows the statistics, 2.3 million individuals are incarcerated. The majority the people that were serving 20 years 30 years life without parole sentences for nonviolent drug crimes were African Americans or Latinos.'
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