In 1998 Jason Hernandez's father was told "Tell Jason 'bye' 'cause you're never going to see him again." Hernandez was 21 years old and had been dealing drugs for six years. Although his crime was nonviolent and this was his first offense, he was sentenced to life without parole. The Drug Act of 1986 instituted mandatory sentencing guidelines as part of the War on Drugs. These restrictions have been shown to disproportionately affect minorities with an immense majority of people convicted of crack cocaine offenses being black. In addition, while most of these crimes are nonviolent, the inmates end up serving as much or more time than those have committed much more heinous crimes. But the bottom line for Hernandez was "Locking up people for life without parole isn't working." In 2011 he founded Crack Open the Door to advocate for these people, to work to revise sentencing laws, and to help people "put a face to the statistics."

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