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THE MESSAGE:

Since the shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo., last year, police conduct has been under increasing scrutiny. At the same time, a bipartisan call for lower rates of incarceration and arrest of blacks has gained strength.

One wonders whether police are reluctant, to confront black suspects. Some argue that groups such as 'Black Lives Matter', were causing crime to rise in various cities. Recently the heads of the F.B.I. and the D.E.A said they believed that the 'Ferguson Effect' seemed to be real.

Mass incarceration of blacks is attributed by some as the reason that young, uneducated black criminals are disrespectful of the law. This comment may not be politically correct, but it does require further thought.

Do police forces in cities with a large percentage of blacks deliberately single out these people by such actions as 'stop and frisk' and 'carding'?

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Do police have more fear for their own safety when confronting black suspects?

Are police reluctant to confront young black men to avoid situations that will bring trouble down upon them and their reputations?

If all of the above are indeed true, then it seems to me that more sensitivity training for society as a whole is required. All citizens, blacks included, need to understand and appreciate the complexities and reactions faced by police in the line of duty each day.

In a move that promises to reduce racial tension in the U.S., President Obama commuted the sentences of 95 federal prisoners and granted two pardons on Friday, December 18, 2015.

Most of those who will be freed are nonviolent drug offenders given long sentences during an earlier crackdown on crime. Forty of them will be spared life terms. The commutations came as part of an overhaul of the criminal justice system and is seen as a necessary step to reverse decades of steep penalties which have disproportionately affected African-American and Hispanic men.

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The vast majority of Friday’s commutations were given to criminals who have been imprisoned for more than a decade, behaved well in prison and would have been sentenced to fewer years under the current rules.