About 18,000 prisoners had sent in electronic applications to the Department of Justice after the announcement of President Barack Obama's new clemency program for non-violent lawbreakers, according to Yahoo News.

Obama's new program is aimed at granting pardon to prisoners who have served at least 10 years for non-violent crimes and would have been punished less severely if the crimes had been committed today, or convicted based on presently repealed laws. Moreover, prisoners should have clean records of inmate history and should have no previous record of "significant" violent acts.

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According to the U.S. Justice Department, 18,000 electronic applications have been submitted to the Office of the Pardon Attorney in response to the announcement which was circulated less than a month ago by the Bureau of Prisons to more than 200,000 federal prisoners. The figure doesn't include inmates who opted to submit their applications directly to the Justice Department, going without the counsel of a public lawyer.

However, the initial selection of the 18,000 petitioners would not be conducted so easily. The Office of the Pardon Attorney is understaffed and under-equipped to handle Obama's new program.

"It is going to be a lot of work to look at this number of applications, and many of them are going to present different questions," Mark Osler, a member of the clemency project, said.

The initial selection of the submitted petitions would require some of the smartest attorneys in the country. Osler said the program expects a number of U.S. attorneys to assist in the project.

Attorney General Eric Holder said that the Justice Department will reassign a number of its attorneys to the Office of the Pardon Attorney to assist with the screening and other such legal tasks. He added that he had requested in April for additional funds for hiring of more lawyers to help with the program.

However, the request was not granted as House Republicans had vetoed it last week, saying that the clemency program would only serve to benefit drug dealers.

TagsObama, Clemency program, clemency 2014, pardon, federal prisoner, Obama's programs, Drugs, Department of Justice, DOJ, Office of the Pardon Attorney, Deborah Leff, Mark Osler, law issues, law matters, Obama administration