Jamie and Gladys Scott have sat behind bars for nearly two decades over a robbery that netted just $11 dollars. The two women also dispute the fact that they even participated in the robbery, and many wondered if there were political motivations behind the magnitude of their original sentence. But the Scott sisters, who are 36 and 38 years old, were released this week when Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour suspended their sentences indefinitely.

The sisters were given two life sentences in 1994 when they allegedly ambushed a man, hitting him in the head with a shot gun and making off with $11 dollars. Nancy Lockhart, an activist, fought tirelessly for the women to be released, and there were rallies held in Mississippi on their behalf. She was finally successful when the governor made the decision to release them.

One interesting aspect of the release conditions for the Scott sisters is that they are actually required to share a kidney or will be asked to come back to prison. While bizarre as a request, this doesn't seem to be a problem, given that Gladys offered to share her kidney with her sister. Governor Barbour cited the high cost to the state of Jamie's kidney condition (she has complete kidney failure), and also noted that he doesn't feel that the sisters are a threat to public safety.


The same way that politics may have played a role in the sentencing of the Scott sisters (Nancy shared much of this with me last year), politics also plays a role in their release. Governor Haley Barbour has an interest in running for president in 2012 and has been heavily criticized for a series of very public racial embarrassments. I suspect that his decision to release the Scott sisters is an attempt to try to make things right with African Americans. Unfortunately for Haley Barbour, his consistent and unprofessional attacks on the nation's first black president have already ruined the presidential prospects of the governor of arguably the most historically racist state in America.

We should all celebrate the release of the Scott sisters, and I am personally very happy for them. But one thing that also holds true is that there are hundreds of thousands of prison inmates across America who've received sentences that are clearly out of proportion with the magnitude of their crimes. Also, justice systems like that in the state of Mississippi are guilty of continuing the slave trade by incarcerating tens of thousands of people (a large percentage of whom happen to be black and brown) and forcing them to do work for which they are either unpaid or poorly compensated. The release of the Scott sisters is but one symbolic victory in a very long "to do list" for the entire criminal justice system. NAACP President Ben Jealous was good to provide a comment on the matter for the New York Times, and it is my hope that he will pick up the torch to help inspire Attorney General Eric Holder to push his staff to investigate the nature of this system of modern day slavery.

The state of the criminal justice system is not in debate by African American leadership. (Everyone knows it is a modern day holocaust of unthinkable magnitude.) The only question, at this point, is who will have the courage to confront it. I hope that those who fought for Jamie and Gladys will continue to fight for everyone. I also hope that the NAACP will confront the justice system in its entirety, for it is truly a life-or-death issue for millions in the African American community. Our children need us to be strong, focused, determined and uncompromising on this issue, for their futures depend on what we do.

Dr. Boyce Watkins is the founder of the Your Black World Coalition and a co-founder of the Never Going Back initiative to reform the criminal justice system. To have Dr. Boyce commentary delivered to your email, please click here.