The Demographics of President Obama’s Clemency Initiative

• In Event: Poster Session 2

Abstract

On April 23, 2014, the Department of Justice announced The Clemency Initiative on behalf of the Obama Administration. This program aimed to reduce drug-related sentencing disparities by encouraging federal prisoners who would have received substantially shorter sentences under current sentencing guidelines to petition for a commutation. Over 24,000 applications were received, yet President Obama only granted commutations for 1,715 petitions, and 18,749 petitioners were officially denied. The Initiative has been the subject of criticism regarding its structure and impacts, but there has yet to be a systematic analysis of petitioner demographics. As such, this study explores demographic disparities in who petitioned for, was granted, or denied clemency under the Initiative. Challenges of collecting federal-level prison data, as well as preliminary analyses of the data, are presented.

Authors

• Nina Lawrence, University of California, Irvine

• Ruhtcel Ildefonso, University of California, Irvine

• Yuliana Rojas, California State University, San Marcos

• Elena M. Amaya, University of California, Berkeley

• Delaney Mosca, University of California, Irvine

• Jordan Grasso, University of California, Irvine

• Keramet Reiter, University of California, Irvine