Barack Obama · 2009-2017 term
Reduce the federal crack-powder sentencing disparity
Tracked as delivered because the Fair Sentencing Act reduced the statutory disparity from 100-to-1 to 18-to-1, producing a clear legal change even though it did not eliminate the gap entirely.
Latest reviewed action recorded: Aug 3, 2010
Record Note
Demo seed record for Promise Tracker v1. Included for testing and editorial review.
Original Promise
Barack Obama campaigned on reducing the federal crack and powder cocaine sentencing disparity, which had produced sharply unequal criminal penalties with disproportionate effects on Black communities.
Action Timeline
Actions document what the federal government did. Outcomes below describe what changed, and each source list shows where the public record comes from.
Aug 3, 2010
Fair Sentencing Act enacted
Congress enacted the Fair Sentencing Act, reducing the crack-to-powder cocaine sentencing disparity in federal law.
Aug 3, 2010
Administration frames the law as a concrete sentencing reform step
The White House and allied reform advocates treated enactment as a meaningful move toward reducing racially skewed sentencing outcomes.
Outcomes
Outcomes are the part of the record that can contribute to public scoring. They stay visible here with impact direction and linked sources so readers can verify what shaped the record.
Legal Outcome
Federal law reduced the crack-to-powder cocaine sentencing disparity from 100-to-1 to 18-to-1.
Measured or documented impact: The measurable legal shift was the reduction of the disparity ratio, with downstream effects on sentencing exposure and later retroactive relief debates.
Black community impact: The reform directly addressed one of the best-documented federal sentencing disparities that had disproportionately harmed Black communities.
Evidence strength: Strong
Linked sources: 1
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