Abstract
Introduction
Today, the United States incarcerates more people than any other country in the world. Nearly half a million people are incarcerated in federal and state prisons for drug offenses, up from just 41,000 in 1980. Mass incarceration has disproportionately affected communities of color, with the American Civil Liberties Union noting that one out of every three Black boys and one out of every six Latino boys born today can expect to be imprisoned, compared to one out of every seventeen white boys. Notably, the 1980s marked the beginning of the War on Drugs, which led to a spike in the number of arrested and incarcerated people for drug offenses. As a result, Congress implemented several reforms that have reduced prison populations in recent years. Congress enacted the Fair Sentencing Act of 2010 (Fair Sentencing Act) on August 3, 2010, which proved to be the right step towards criminal justice reform, but it fell short because it did not apply retroactively.