[JURIST] Outgoing US President Barack Obama [personal website] commuted the prison sentences [press release] of 330 federal inmates on Thursday. A majority of the sentences commuted were for non-violent drug offenses. These most recent commutations were the most ever granted in one day. They also bring Obama’s total number of reduced sentences to 1,715, the most by any US President, and more than the number granted by the last 13 presidents combined.

This is the last effort of the Obama administration to encourage criminal justice reform efforts [WH backgrounder]. In August Obama granted clemency [JURIST report] to 214 federal inmates. In June the Obama administration announced [JURIST report] a number of programs focused on better reintroducing released prisoners into the community. Last January Obama ordered [WP report] the Attorney General to review the use of solitary confinement. Conservative groups have criticized [Daily Signal report] Obama’s efforts as harming law enforcement’s abilities to “dismantle and disrupt drug trafficking organizations.” Republicans have also insisted on requiring federal prosecutors to “prove that white-collar defendants acted knowingly to violate the law,” but the administration and Democrats maintain [The Hill report] that those provisions would make it harder for the government to prosecute corporate crimes.