Warnings about a flood of released prisoners by federal officials and others opposed to lowering penalties for crack-cocaine offenders don't hold water, the Chicago Tribune reported Dec. 18.

The U.S. Sentencing Commission recently voted to reduce the crack penalties and make them retroactive to offenders already imprisoned. Opposing that decision, acting U.S. deputy attorney general Craig Morford said it would "make thousands of dangerous prisoners, many of them violent gang members, eligible for immediate release."

However, each of the 3,000 offenders eligible for immediate relief would have to petition the Justice Department first, and experts say few offenders with violent backgrounds are likely to win release.

"If you listen to the hyperbole out there, you would think the doors are swinging open and individuals armed with submachine guns would be leaving," said federal judge Ruben Castillo, a member of the U.S. Sentencing Commission. "I'd be the last person in the world to open a jail cell door for a serious violent criminal."

The commission, which includes a number of members appointed by President Bush, unanimously voted to reduce the crack sentences and made the reductions retroactive. The decision means that up to 19,000 people currently in prison for crack offenses could appeal their sentences at some point.