6,000 prisoners to be released early from federal prison

The Justice Department will release the inmates between 30 October and 2 November

(John Moore/Getty)

Six-thousand federal inmates will be released early from federal prisons in an effort to reduce overpopulated prisons and sentences for drug offenders in the US.

Washington Post reports that the inmates will be set free nationwide 30 October through 2 November, mostly being sent to halfway houses and home confinement before their eventual release.

Nearly one-third of the prisoners are non-citizens and deported by US Immigration Custom Enforcement officials, one unnamed Justice Department official told CNN.

Sally Quillan Yates, a Justice Department deputy attorney, told the station that her department "strongly supports sentencing reform for low-level, non-violent drug offenders."

The US Sentencing Commission produced new guidelines for non-violent drug offenders in April. The changes would be retroactively applied to at least 50,000 federal inmates, the Post reports.