Justice Dept. Seeks to Curtail Stiff Drug Sentences

[alp227]

Source: New York Times

In a major shift in criminal justice policy, the Obama administration will move on Monday to ease overcrowding in federal prisons by ordering prosecutors to omit listing quantities of illegal substances in indictments for low-level drug cases, sidestepping federal laws that impose strict mandatory minimum sentences for drug-related offenses.

Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr., in a speech at the American Bar Association’s annual meeting in San Francisco on Monday, is expected to announce the new policy as one of several steps intended to curb soaring taxpayer spending on prisons and help correct what he regards as unfairness in the justice system, according to his prepared remarks.

Saying that “too many Americans go to too many prisons for far too long and for no good law enforcement reason,” Mr. Holder is planning to justify his policy push in both moral and economic terms.

“Although incarceration has a role to play in our justice system, widespread incarceration at the federal, state and local levels is both ineffective and unsustainable,” Mr. Holder’s speech says. “It imposes a significant economic burden — totaling $80 billion in 2010 alone — and it comes with human and moral costs that are impossible to calculate.”

Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/12/us/justice-dept-seeks-to-curtail-stiff-drug-sentences.html

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Something a Romney administration's AG would NEVER even consider even though a lot of us are unhappy with the Obama administration's decisions lately.

[Vinnie From Indy]

1. Politically astute and morally correct.

Cheers!

[MannyGoldstein]

2. They must have found bankers selling drugs

And Elizabeth Warren is shaming Holder into prosecuting 'em.

[Control-Z]

12. Give it a rest.

Nothing is good enough for you with Obama in office. Nothing. This last post of yours is quite telling.

[Aristus]

3. Oh, the Prison-Industrial Complex is gonna HATE this!...

Well done, Mr. President! It's about time we demonstrate some logic on this subject.

[ConcernedCanuk]

4. Nice words, but ain't gonna happen

.
.
.

Corporations control the USA,

not the government.

CC

[Comrade Grumpy]

16. Some of this will most definitely happen.

Holder has ordered specific actions in the Justice Department. He's the boss there. Federal prosecutors have been ordered to not employ mandatory minimum charges for low-level nonviolent drug offenders. That will make a difference.

He also signaled strong administration support for pending sentencing reform legislation, which now has backing in both parties. Hell, even groups like ALEC are getting behind sentencing reform.

[Drunken Irishman]

5. Good. But no one will care because it's not about the NSA or Snowden.

That's pretty much what anyone cares to talk about on here anymore. It's weird - in the real world, no one is talking about this (or they touch on it - but it's not the focal point of discussion). However, you come on DU and you'd think it was the only story happening right now. Quite the contrast.

[Summer Hathaway]

9. More and more,

DU tends to be in striking contrast to anything resembling the real world.

[Tx4obama]

6. More info below

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The Justice Department plans to change how it prosecutes some non-violent drug offenders, so they would no longer face mandatory minimum prison sentences, in an overhaul of federal prison policy that Attorney General Eric Holder will unveil on Monday.

Holder will outline the status of a broad, ongoing project intended to improve Justice Department sentencing policies across the country in a speech to the American Bar Association in San Francisco.

“I have mandated a modification of the Justice Department’s charging policies so that certain low-level, nonviolent drug offenders who have no ties to large-scale organizations, gangs, or cartels, will no longer be charged with offenses that impose draconian mandatory minimum sentences,” Holder is expected to say, according to excerpts of his prepared remarks provided by the Justice Department.

The United States imprisons a higher percentage of its population than other large countries, largely because of anti-drug laws passed in the 1980s and 1990s.

Holder will also reveal a plan to create a slate of local guidelines to determine if cases should be subject to federal charges.

-snip-

More here: http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2013/08/12/attorney-general-eric-holder-to-outline-new-drug-offender-sentencing-proposal/

[malthaussen]

15. Tap dancing on thin ice.

There are enough qualifiers in the quoted statement to lead me to believe that about two people will get a break when it is all said and done.

-- Mal

[defacto7]

7. I'll wait and see what happens.

The prison system is an entity to itself where once incarceration has been implemented there is little that judges or district attorneys ever do. Such a huge cut in income for prison corporations will certainly cause waves in the background that will cause even the highest official to think twice. That system is big and very contained. I wouldn't expect much, though it's a logical and realistic move in a real sense. The prison system is not part of the world as we know it and has its own rules.

[freshwest]

8. Holder has been trying to change charging and sentencing guidelines for a long time.

[quadrature]

10. Obama can shorten the length of a federal ...

prison sentence with the stroke of a pen.

[davidn3600]

11. This will get much push-back from the prison industrial complex

Very few states are looking to change anything. And corporations that own/manage an increasing number of our jails and prisons will lobby hard against changes that might reduce the population.

Our justice system is like a giant black hole. Once you get caught in it's gravity, you will never escape. And that's by design. Lots of people are making money off this system.

[silvershadow]

13. Yep. They will have to be extracted from the equation by their fingernails. It's high time (no pun

intended) to fix the mess Reagan left behind, which haunts us to this day.

[Comrade Grumpy]

17. Actually, many states have engaged in sentencing reforms in recent years.

State prison populations are actually decreasing; it is the federal system that keeps increasing. Holder announced specific actions the Justice Department will take to reduce the number of low-level drug offenders behind bars. This is a good thing.

[appal_jack]

14. Happy to give credit where it is (hopefully!) due...

This sounds like a smart move by Obama & Holder. If Monday transpires as this article predicts, then the Obama administration will have taken a major step towards curtailing some of the worst abuses of the present iteration of the drug war. Of course, the ought to be much more done than just this. Sentence reductions are a good start, but they are not an endpoint as far as I am concerned. So though I am thankful for this bit of common sense, I expect more to come.

-app

[muriel_volestrangler]

18. Seems like a good move

Minimum sentences for almost anything non-violent can be a bad idea; for something as victimless as drug use, they are ridiculous.

[Kingofalldems]

19. Would that be retroactive?