WASHINGTON—Vice President Kamala Harris hosted reality-television star Kim Kardashian on the White Home on Thursday to debate prison justice reform, after the Biden administration granted clemency to individuals convicted of nonviolent drug offenses.
On Wednesday, President Joe Biden granted clemency to 16 individuals, pardoning 11 of them and commuting the sentences of the opposite 5. 4 of the recipients joined Thursday’s occasion.
“All people makes errors, and for some that may rise to the extent of being against the law,” Ms. Harris mentioned on the White Home. “However is it not the signal of a civil society that we enable individuals a approach to earn their method again and provides them the assist and the sources they want to try this?”
Ms. Harris, a former prosecutor, deliberate to announce the finalization of a Small Enterprise Administration rule that may take away most restrictions on mortgage eligibility primarily based on an individual’s prison report, White Home officers mentioned.
Ms. Kardashian, who can be an entrepreneur, first turned a vocal activist for prison justice reform throughout former President Donald Trump’s administration. Ms. Harris praised her work.
“Each time I’ve gone and visited a jail, I’ve met a few of the smartest people with the brightest concepts, and to see the modifications which are occurring to make their re-entry simpler, I believe goes to be life altering,” mentioned Ms. Kardashian.
Since taking workplace, President Joe Biden has commuted the sentences of 122 people and granted pardons to twenty people who dedicated non-violent drug offenses, the White Home mentioned. In December, President Biden granted categorical pardons to hundreds convicted of use and easy possession of marijuana in Washington and on federal lands.
Final month, Ms. Harris convened a roundtable with individuals pardoned for marijuana offenses with rapper Fats Joe.