 Hello, I'm Javier Hernandez, reporting from Washington. Thousands of prison inmates will soon be eligible for sentence reductions because of a sentencing amendment. Earlier this year, the judiciary hosted meetings to discuss how to handle this major workload increase. In late 2007, the U.S. Sentencing Commission lowered the base offense level for crack cocaine by two levels. For example, the penalty for a first-time offender found with five grams of crack was 63 to 78 months. Now, it's 51 to 63 months. The commission also made the change retroactive, which means in March more than 21,000 inmates will be eligible for sentence reduction. Judges' decisions to reduce sentences will trigger immediate release for some inmates. But most inmates' granted reductions will be released over the next several years. Now, there's no question that the decision to apply the crack amendment retroactively is going to impose considerable administrative burdens on the courts. Which prompted two summit meetings in January, where more than 700 representatives from the courts and the Justice Department discussed how to deal with this new work. The panels offer diverse views and opinions. The department is not saying that that doesn't mean in some appropriate case that counsel shouldn't be appointed. But what we're saying is, if you look at the statute, it doesn't apply. There is no provision for counsel. But we all know the department can't negotiate with people who they may have an adverse interest with. But if someone files on their own... Judges, federal defenders, prosecutors and probation officers met in breakout sessions to discuss their specific concerns and to propose solutions to the rest of the summit meeting. From there, we're going to prepare a document that can be presented to a three-member panel of the U.S. Attorney's Public Defender's Office and a Criminal Justice Act panel to balance it out well. Tell me about your children. Probation officers will do much of the heavy lifting. They'll work closely with the Bureau of Prisons and have access to inmates' conduct files, which could impact judges' sentence reduction or release decisions. Some districts already have plans in place to handle the initial bombardment of requests. I heard yesterday that certain districts are trying to triage this, and I think that's exactly what should be done. We need to concentrate on those individuals that are most eligible, those immediate release defendants, and those that would be eligible in the first year. But these reductions are not automatic. They are made upon a motion by the defense defendant, the Bureau of Prisons, or the court on its own motion, and they are granted only after a judge decides in an individual case that the authorized reduction is warranted or some portion of that reduction is warranted. Panel members reminded everyone that a sentencing amendment of this scale is a first, and that cooperation and flexibility will be key. We sat down at that table over there yesterday and we came up with a plan and we mapped everything out, and I know, and I'm sure everybody else knows that once we put it into effect, there's going to come a time when it's not going to work. You have to be prepared to adapt to situations that don't fit your plan. The U.S. Sentencing Commission is an independent bipartisan agency within the federal judiciary. The commission was organized in 1985 to develop national sentencing policy for the federal courts. Reporting from Washington, I'm Javier Hernandez.