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And crack cocaine suspects, half of whom were 28 or younger, were even younger by comparison. Ellison adds that in his experience as a trial lawyer, middle-aged people don't get busted with crack cocaine.

The crack cocaine reforms passed by Congress will impact almost 3, crack offenders each year and reduce crack sentences by 27 months on average. One concern for advocates is that it will not impact any crack offenders who are currently in prison.

And Stitt said the next step is to apply the law retroactively. What's fair for someone going into prison is fair for the person who's already behind bars, she said. The United States has the highest incarceration rate in the world on a per capita basis. And Ellison adds that growth in drug-related incarceration is one of the major drivers for those rates.

There have been 73, crack offenders sentenced in federal courts since , and each year, approximately 5, to 6, crack offenders are sentenced, according to the U. Last year alone, 5, people were sentenced for crack, with 1, receiving a 5-year mandatory minimum, and 2, receiving a year mandatory minimum. Equal protection under the law. So this doesn't equalize it one to one -- it's still to-1, but it's a far cry better than to Do you have information you want to share with HuffPost? Main Menu U.

News U. Politics Joe Biden Congress Extremism. Special Projects Highline. HuffPost Personal Video Horoscopes. Follow Us. Part of HuffPost Politics. All rights reserved. While the new law won't eliminate the sentencing disparity, Ellison says it's a big improvement.

Lucia Graves. Suggest a correction. In their Boulder home that morning, parents John and Patsy Ramsey had found a ransom note handwritten on a pad with a black Sharpie that belonged to the family.

To date, the police department's Major Crimes Unit has "received, reviewed or investigated more than 21, tips, letters and emails and detectives have traveled to 19 states to interview or speak with more than 1, individuals in connection to this crime," according to police. In , a grand jury voted to indict the parents for child abuse resulting in death and accessory to a crime. But the district attorney at the time said there was not enough evidence to bring charges against the couple.

Want to keep up with the latest crime coverage? Then, in , a statement by then-District Attorney Mary Lacy publicly apologized to the family for placing them under suspicion and announced that evidence cleared JonBenet's parents as well as her brother Burke , who was age 9 at the time of the murder.

Patsy died in after a years-long battle with ovarian cancer. Burke, now 34, ended his long public silence about the case in in a three-part broadcast interview with Dr.

Phil McGraw, stating he had not killed his sister and that his parents had not covered for him. Or lack thereof," he said. More than three dozen books have explored the crime, along with at least a dozen TV programs and movies. None have helped resolve the cold case. And the evidence they were finding was, unfortunately for them, contradictory to their conclusion," he said.