This paper discusses how existing legal strategies can be used to help bring immediate relief to individuals serving long-term prison sentences for drug-related crimes by creating or expanding opportunities for their early release. These strategies, which currently exist at both state and federal jurisdictions, are conceptualized as mechanisms that can provide “second chances” to drug offenders serving sentences that are often unnecessary, excessive, and out of line with societal views on sentencing. Such strategies are, arguably, one of our best first steps to ending the “war on drugs.”

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/349179907_Second_Chance_Mechanisms_as_a_First_Step_to_Ending_the_War_on_Drugs