In a speech to the American Bar Association in San Francisco, Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. is expected to announce that low-level, nonviolent drug offenders with no ties to gangs or drug organizations will no longer be charged with offenses that impose severe mandatory sentences. This new Justice Department policy is one of several steps intended to curb increased spending on prisons and help correct what Holder regards as unfairness in the justice system. Holder is also expected to introduce policies that reduce sentences for elderly, nonviolent inmates and find alternatives to prison for nonviolent criminals. Several states have already undertaken prison and parole overhauls to decrease incarceration. Efforts to ease overcrowding in prisons include reductions in prison terms for low-level drug offenders, diverting offenders into treatment programs, releasing elderly or well-behaved inmates early, and expanding job training and re-entry programs. Still, in these states, changes were approved by state lawmakers. Mr. Holder’s reform is different because he is invoking his power of prosecutorial discretion to modify mandatory minimum sentencing laws To read more, go to: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/12/us/justice-dept-seeks-to-curtail-stiff-drug-sentences.html?pagewanted=all
From the Archive