The Obama administration is set to follow through with plans to give early release to nearly 6,600 federal criminals starting this weekend, reports say.

Marking the largest release of federal prisoners in history, thousands of inmates are being released all across the country. In Illinois, for instance, 260 are scheduled to be released.

The release plans were initiated by the U.S. Sentencing Commission in 2014 when it reduced maximum sentences for offenders. The new sentencing rules were made retroactive, requiring the mass release this year, and were aimed at easing overcrowding.

The new rules, being called “drugs minus two,” could ultimately reduce the sentencing of as many as 46,000 convicted criminals. Supporters say the rules should affect the sentences only of non-violent offenders.

But Senate Judiciary Chairman Senator Chuck Grassley (R, IA) criticized the new rules. Grassley insists that thousands of violent felons could also be released into the public.

The Obama administration initially tried to distance itself from the U.S. Sentencing Commission’s decision, but as Breitbart’s Neil Munro noted earlier this month, “Democrats appointed most of the legal professionals now running the U.S. Sentencing Commission, which directed lower jail penalties for some crimes and backdated rules to allow the releases. The group is headed by judges and political lawyers who are allied with the Democratic Party, not by politicians who face an election in 2016.”

The Commission said federal sentences were reduced by an average of 18 percent.

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