President Barack Obama said Thursday he intends to issue about as many pardons as his predecessors by the time he leaves office in January. But Obama has a long way to go – to date he’s pardoned fewer people than any president since James Garfield, who was fatally shot in 1881 after less than three months in office.

Obama said during a press conference at the Pentagon that the number of pardons he intends to give will be “roughly in line with what other presidents have done” in response to a question about his low number of pardons despite a relatively long list of commutations, to which he added 214 names on Wednesday.

The president’s notoriously ungenerous giving of pardons contrasts sharply with the chart published on WhiteHouse.gov showing the number of commutations he has given compared to other presidents, along with a quote from White House Counsel to the President Neil Eggleston saying he expects Obama to “continue to grant clemency in a historic and inspiring fashion."

Though Obama has commuted more sentences than his nine immediate predecessors combined, he has issued a paltry 70 pardons – and only four this year, all as part of a prisoner exchange with Iran. Those lucky enough to win a pardon include a man who shaved pennies to appear as dimes to trick vending machines and a man convicted of polluting a river with slaughterhouse waste.

President George W. Bush had given more than double the number of pardons as Obama at the same point in his presidency. He ultimately issued 189 pardons and fewer commutations, 11. A large share of Obama’s 562 total commutations deal with crack cocaine, the penalties for which have been reduced.

“It concerns me that this really important part of the clemency caseload has been so neglected,” says Margaret Love, who served as the U.S. pardon attorney from 1990 to 1997 under Presidents George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton.

“It’s bad enough that the president is the only way to go for people who have served their sentence and are seeking relief from collateral consequences and restoration of their rights,” she told U.S. News shortly before the president's news conference. “But when the president says ‘the door is closed, I’m not home for you,’ that’s very troublesome. I’m not sure he appreciates that in effect is what he’s said.”

Clemency usually comes in two forms. Pardons clear the slate of people convicted of crimes and generally are sought by people not in prison who aspire to regain a long list of rights and employment options. Commutations, by contrast, shorten the sentence of inmates still behind bars but retain the conviction. In more than a third of the commutations announced this week, the effective date is two years from now and conditioned on residential drug treatment.

The possible explanations for Obama’s stingy pardon-giving vary, but it's a frustration for Love's clients seeking a sense of forgiveness before they die or the ability to become U.S. citizens despite minor and decades-old convictions.

One possible reason for the president's inaction is caution inspired by recent history. Obama noted this Thursday, saying clemency "is politically risky" and that "everyone remembers that Willie Horton ad" that was used to attack 1988 Democratic presidential nominee Michael Dukakis. He said advisers "earlier in my presidency" advised him to be cautious.

Abner Mikva, Clinton's third White House counsel, said he spoke with Obama even before he took office and recalled “a lengthy discussion about Marc Rich,” the wealthy fugitive and Democratic donor who Clinton controversially pardoned in his final days in office.

“I think he was very, very dismayed by the Marc Rich pardon ... [and] how even a good president can be corrupted by the pardons process," Mikva said.

A second possible explanation is the deluge of petitions coming into the pardon office after the Justice Department in 2014 announced its Clemency Initiative for nonviolent offenders whose crimes today would receive shorter sentences. Obama gave indication this, too, could be a contributing factor, mentioning financial constraints.

This explanation is supported by the resignation letter of Deborah Leff, who left her post as U.S. pardon attorney in January, saying there was insufficient staffing to handle a flood of petitions, meaning “thousands of petitioners seeking justice will lie unheard.”

Leff wrote that because of the influx, “I have been instructed to set aside thousands of petitions for pardon and traditional commutation.”

A third possible explanation is offered by Love: that pardon requests are, without correction from Obama, being unnecessarily slowed by Justice Department prosecutors who also could alleviate clemency system burdens by going to court to shorten sentences.

The former pardon attorney says the Justice Department – whose deputy attorney general reviews pardon attorney decisions before they are sent to the White House – could seek to use a statute known for allowing “compassionate release” of prisoners to shorten unreasonably long sentences. The law allows reductions if there are "extraordinary and compelling reasons."

“It doesn’t make sense to try to deal with a systemic problem affecting thousands of people through the clemency power. Some solution through the courts has got to be found,” she says. “Even if the president does another thousand of these [commutation] cases, there still will be many left behind.”

Love says she has three clients in prison seeking commutations and about 30 who are seeking pardons, and that eight of her clients have won commutations from Obama, including two this week.

The two forms of clemency – commutations and pardons – are related but should be thought of separately, she says.

Love says she would not recommend that Obama do last-minute research on Google to find prisoners worthy of a pardon, as he needs to insulate himself from controversies such as those faced by Clinton and instead go with vetted cases in moderately sized batches.

Though Obama has been indisputably stingy about issuing pardons, advocates for people who are serving long prison sentences say they are grateful for the many commutations he has issued, and that they hope he will hand out many more.

“I think it’s a little more critical when you’re in prison to be able to get out,” says Beth Curtis, who maintains the website LifeforPot.com and advocates for release of her brother John Knock, who has a pending clemency petition submitted last year, and others exclusively jailed for marijuana and lacking a history of violence or non-cannabis crime.

“Once you’re out, there certainly are egregious collateral consequences for these guys, and it would be nice if they could get pardons. But I don't think that's going to happen,” she says.

Curtis says the pardon process is frustratingly opaque and that she and other family members anxiously review lists of clemency recipients after they are published. Thus far, she’s met with disappointment looking for the name of her brother, who was convicted in 2000 – long before marijuana became regulated for recreational sale in four states.

“I really am pathologically optimistic about life in general, so I always have hope,” she says. “I just can’t believe these kinds of egregious things will stand. I do have hope my brother will get out and there will change in the criminal justice system to keep people from getting these sentences.”

Kevin Ring, a former conservative political staffer and associate of disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff who unsuccessfully challenged his prison sentence and now serves as vice president of the advocacy group Families Against Mandatory Minimums, says he, too, isn’t fixated on the small number of pardons from Obama.

“We want more of both for deserving people, but we would have a hard time criticizing the pardon output when he’s been so aggressive with commutations,” Ring says. “A commutation at least gives you a second chance to have a life.

Ring says he believes Obama’s stuck trying to address three decades of unreasonably tough criminal laws, and that ultimately “the law needs to change – there are still people getting sentences that in severity far exceed their crime. He’s letting some water out of the drain, but we have to turn off the spigot and stop filling the tub.”

Love also says a long-term fix is necessary and that states may offer a good model for reform, with laws being passed that mitigate collateral consequences of conviction. She views Delaware as a model, where regular public meetings are held to address pardons.