Holder to scale back tough sentences for low-level drug crimes

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The Hill:

Attorney General Eric Holder is set to announce Monday that the Justice Department will no longer press mandatory minimum sentences against many low-level drug crime offenders, according to reports.

 

“Too many Americans go to too many prisons for far too long, and for no good law enforcement reason,” Holder will tell an American Bar Association meeting in San Francisco, according to prepared remarks.

 

“While the aggressive enforcement of federal criminal statutes remains necessary, we cannot simply prosecute or incarcerate our way to becoming a safer nation,” he will say.

Calling laws which require minimum prison time “draconian,” Holder will order federal prosecutors to avoid charging non-violent drug offenders without ties to gangs or drug cartels under those crimes.

 

Instead they will push community service or rehabilitation instead of prison and Holder will also seek to expand a program that helps release elderly, non-violent inmates from incarceration to ease prison overcrowding.