Today, Attorney General Eric Holder will announce a change in policy for the Justice Department that will see federal prosecutors no longer pursuing mandatory minimum jail time for non-violent offenders with no apparent gang ties.
Holder will present remarks Monday to the American Bar Association at a meeting in San Francisco. He will announce a modification to the policy instituted in the 1980s and strengthened in the 1990s.
At the time, federal lawmakers argued in favor of mandatory minimum sentences as a way to combat drug gangs.
“Too many Americans go to too many prisons for far too long, and for no good law enforcement reason,” Holder says in remarks prepared for the conference.
See the story at Reuters.
