Black Agenda Report
Black Agenda Report
News, commentary and analysis from the black left.

  • Home
  • Africa
  • African America
  • Education
  • Environment
  • International
  • Media and Culture
  • Political Economy
  • Radio
  • US Politics
  • War and Empire
  • omnibus

Ujima People’s Progress Party Statement on Governor Wes Moore’s Marijuana Conviction Pardons
Ujima People’s Progress Party
26 Jun 2024
Wes Moore signing
Photo: Maryland Office of the Governor

Maryland Governor Wes Moore recently issued pardons for over 175,000 people in a show of "progress" in criminal justice reform. But these pardons barely scratch the surface of the destruction of black working-class communities and serve to draw people from the fight for true reparations from the war on drugs.  

One might conclude that Maryland Governor Wes Moore’s pardoning of over 175,000 low-level marijuana convictions is a “step in the right direction” in reforming the criminal justice system. Add to this the timing of the announcement on the eve of the Juneteenth holiday, and the optics make for good public relations for Moore.

But when one peels back the layers of the actual act and Moore’s more significant criminal justice record thus far, it becomes clear that the gesture is more performative public relations than the radical substantive change needed.  We will outline a few reasons why:

  1. Pardons do not expunge criminal records, which is a significant barrier that returning citizens face, be it employment, student debt relief, and often for professional licensing and housing;
  2. No one in Maryland is currently incarcerated for misdemeanor marijuana convictions. The pardons free no one from jail;
  3. This is “back door” action when “front door” action is needed, which impacts charging decisions, pretrial detention, and alternatives such as diversion to mental health programs and mediations of disputes; and most importantly, Initiatives – 2024 | Maryland Alliance for Justice Reform (ma4jr.org);
  4. This pardon does not overturn possession convictions for those persons who experience a parole violation as a result of the conviction;
  5. The governor signed the 1990s-style “tough-on-crime” legislation earlier in the year primarily aimed at youth, which all but ensures the pipeline to incarceration will continue—1990s-style tough-on-crime approach wrong for juvenile justice | Juvenile Law Center (jlc.org).

This all occurs in a state that leads the nation in racial disparities in arrest, charges, and incarceration—Rethinking Approaches to Over Incarceration of Black Young Adults in Maryland - Justice Policy Institute.

Moore’s move does nothing to address the pain and suffering especially of Black working class families have endured. The so-called “war on drugs” was in reality a war on the Black community. Instead of bringing justice, the pardon attempts to get ahead of a struggle for reparations that would compensate the victims of that war and for an end to mass incarceration altogether.

Therefore, it is UPP’s position that this act should not be viewed as a significant step in dismantling a clearly racist criminal injustice system simply because it was implemented by a Black face.

For more on UPP, go to our website, www.uppmaryland.org and request a copy of the Progress Report, our fresh off-the-press newsletter, and join us.

Marijuana legalization
Prison
Reformism
Crime

Do you need and appreciate Black Agenda Report articles. Please click on the DONATE icon, and help us out, if you can.


Related Stories

Reuven Blau
Blacks and Hispanics Seeking Parole Face Widening Racial Disparity, Report Finds
20 November 2024
After a damning revelation eight years ago, state leaders changed the make-up of the Parole Board to combat inequality.
Orisanmi Burton
An open letter to prison officials on the censorship of Tip of the Spear
09 October 2024
Orisanmi Birton's groundbreaking book, Tip of the Spear, has been listed as contraband in prisons across the country, not only preventing incar
Editors, The Black Agenda Review
REPORT: “The People Who Were Left to Die:” Horrors Suffered by Orleans Parish Prisoners in Wake of Katrina, ACLU, 2006
28 August 2024
Remembering the terrible plight of the incarcerated during Hurricane
OJ Simpson at his trial
Gus Griffin
O.J. Simpson and Understanding the Black Support He Never Deserved
17 April 2024
O.J.
Mass incarceration
Max Parthas
The Evolution of Slavery
07 February 2024
In the U.S., a nation built on the enslavement and exploitation of humans, the system of slavery cannot be destroyed. It has merely changed fro
Biden's Marijuana Policy Frees No One
Margaret Kimberley, BAR Executive Editor and Senior Columnist
Biden's Marijuana Policy Frees No One
12 October 2022
Biden's announcement of pardons for federal convictions of marijuana possession is meaningless.
The Black Misleadership Class Attempts to Obfuscate their Carceral State Correlation with the Bogeyman of “white wokeness"
Anthony Karefa Rogers-Wright
The Black Misleadership Class Attempts to Obfuscate their Carceral State Correlation with the Bogeyman of “white wokeness"
14 December 2021
At a time that we need more justice and access to democracy, the Black Misleadership Class is fighting for more prisons and tawdry police refor
Reformism Isn’t Liberation, It’s Counterinsurgency
Dylan Rodríguez
Reformism Isn’t Liberation, It’s Counterinsurgency
21 October 2020
You can’t abolish systemic anti-Blackness and racial-colonial violence by protecting the system itself.

More Stories


  • BAR Radio Logo
    Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley
    Black Agenda Radio May 9, 2025
    09 May 2025
    In this week’s segment, we discuss the 80th anniversary of victory in Europe in World War II, and the disinformation that centers on the U.S.'s role and dismisses the pivotal Soviet role in that…
  • Book: The Rebirth of the African Phoenix
    Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley
    The Rebirth of the African Phoenix: A View from Babylon
    09 May 2025
    Roger McKenzie is the international editor of the UK-based Morning Star, the only English-language socialist daily newspaper in the world. He joins us from Oxford to discuss his new book, “The…
  • ww2
    Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley
    Bruce Dixon: US Fake History of World War II Underlies Permanent Bipartisan Hostility Toward Russia
    09 May 2025
    The late Bruce Dixon was a co-founder and managing editor of Black Agenda Report. In 2018, he provided this commentary entitled, "US Fake History of World War II Underlies Permanent Bipartisan…
  • Nakba
    Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley
    The Meaning of Nakba Day
    09 May 2025
    Nadiah Alyafai is a member of the US Palestinian Community Network chapter in Chicago and she joins us to discuss why the public must be aware of the Nakba and the continuity of Palestinian…
  • Margaret Kimberley, BAR Executive Editor and Senior Columnist
    Ryan Coogler, Shedeur Sanders, Karmelo Anthony, and Rodney Hinton, Jr
    07 May 2025
    Black people who are among the rich and famous garner praise and love, and so do those who are in distress. But concerns for the masses of people and their struggles are often missing.
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us