Now if the states follow through on the same plan and eliminate some of their minimum mandatories
missmeyet?;11754497 said:Now if the states follow through on the same plan and eliminate some of their minimum mandatories
slimvictor;11754688 said:Now if he would only stop prosecuting users of marijuana...
Care;11754996 said:This should be on the front page IMO.
23536;11755014 said:Lugoj, nothing personal. Actually, I shouldn't have quoted you, as I meant my comment to be a general response to the thread. Editing now.
I agree. Even though I suspect that this is little more than rhetoric, it's currently the most prominent news story in the US.
23536;11755014 said:I agree. Even though I suspect that this is little more than rhetoric, it's currently the most prominent news story in the US.
Care;11756214 said:When the attorney general comes out and publicly says something like this it is more than rhetoric, it means the administration is actively considering it.
We really need to set the bar higher for our leaders.
Absolutely. But their sensitivity is not retroactive.At the very least, the media should ask them why the standard isn't applied retroactively. But the media seems to be too busy praising Obama and Holder's supposed sensibility and equanimity.
WASHINGTON — In a sign of growing disenchantment with the war on drugs, conservatives joined Democrats and reform advocates Monday in praising Atty. Gen. Eric H. Holder Jr.'s declaration that it was time to rethink get-tough policies that have tied the hands of judges and swollen the populations of federal prisons.
The nation's top law enforcement officer, decrying the "moral and human costs" of mass incarceration, said he would instruct federal prosecutors to change the way they charge some drug offenders to avoid triggering "mandatory minimum" sentencing laws.
The federal prison population has exploded even as populations in state prisons have declined steadily.
"The course we are on is far from sustainable," Holder said, speaking to the American Bar Assn. in San Francisco. "As the so-called war on drugs enters its fifth decade, we need to ask whether it, and the approaches that comprise it, have been truly effective."
Holder also said the department would increase efforts to find alternatives to incarceration and to smooth the compassionate release of severely ill prisoners who were no longer a threat to the public.
crimsonjunk;11756791 said:This is like putting aband aid on a gunshot wound.
Care said:It looks like this is really happening guys!
23536;11756252 said:They spoke really magnanimously a couple of years ago about reducing the sentencing disparity between crack and powder, and now crack is still eighteen times as illegal as powder. We really need to set the bar higher for our leaders. For instance, if they admit that such sentences are unjust, why not release those that are already serving mandatory minimums.
At the very least, the media should ask them why the standard isn't applied retroactively. But the media seems to be too busy praising Obama and Holder's supposed sensibility and equanimity.