Pubdate: Mon, 12 Aug 2013
Source: Honolulu Star-Advertiser (HI)
Copyright: 2013 Associated Press
Contact: 
http://www.staradvertiser.com/info/Star-Advertiser_Letter_to_the_Editor.html
Website: http://www.staradvertiser.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/5154
Author: Pete Yost, Associated Press
Page: A3

CHANGE DRUG-CRIME SENTENCING, HOLDER SAYS

The Department Will Not Charge Low-Level Offenders on Counts With 
Imperative Terms

WASHINGTON (AP) - Attorney General Eric Holder is calling for major 
changes of the nation's criminal justice system that would scale back 
the use of harsh prison sentences for certain drug-related crimes, 
divert people convicted of low-level offenses to drug treatment and 
community service programs and expand a prison program to allow for 
release of some elderly, nonviolent offenders.

In remarks prepared for delivery today to the American Bar 
Association in San Francisco, Holder said he is mandating a change to 
Justice Department policy so that low-level, nonviolent drug 
offenders with no ties to large-scale organizations, gangs or cartels 
won't be charged with offenses that impose mandatory minimum sentences.

Mandatory minimum prison sentences - a product of the government's 
war on drugs in the 1980s - limit the discretion of judges to impose 
shorter prison sentences.

Under the altered policy, the attorney general said defendants will 
instead be charged with offenses for which accompanying sentences 
"are better suited to their individual conduct, rather than excessive 
prison terms more appropriate for violent criminals or drug kingpins."

Federal prisons are operating at nearly 40 percent above capacity and 
hold more than 219,000 inmates - with almost half of them serving 
time for drug-related crimes and many of them with substance use 
disorders. In addition, 9 million to 10 million prisoners go through 
local jails each year. Holder praised state and local law enforcement 
officials for already instituting some of the types of changes Holder 
says must be made at the federal level.

Aggressive enforcement of federal criminal laws is necessary, but "we 
cannot simply prosecute or incarcerate our way to becoming a safer 
nation," Holder said. "Today a vicious cycle of poverty, criminality 
and incarceration traps too many Americans and weakens too many 
communities. However, many aspects of our criminal justice system may 
actually exacerbate this problem rather than alleviate it."

"We need to ensure that incarceration is used to punish, deter and 
rehabilitate - not merely to convict, warehouse and forget," said the 
attorney general.

Holder said mandatory minimum sentences "breed disrespect for the 
system. When applied indiscriminately, they do not serve public 
safety. They have had a disabling effect on communities. And they are 
ultimately counterproductive."

Sens. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., Mike Lee, R-Utah, 
and Rand Paul, R-Ky., have introduced legislation aimed at giving 
federal judges more discretion in applying mandatory minimums to 
certain drug offenders.

Holder said new approaches - which he is calling the "Smart on Crime" 
initiative - are the result of a Justice Department review he 
launched early this year.

The attorney general said some issues are best handled at the state 
or local level, and said he has directed federal prosecutors across 
the country to develop locally tailored guidelines for determining 
when federal charges should be filed and when they should not.
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