http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/14/u...reduce-drug-sentences.html?smid=re-share&_r=0
Holder Endorses Proposal to Reduce Drug Sentences
By MATT APUZZOMARCH 13, 2014
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Holder Endorses Proposal to Reduce Drug Sentences
By MATT APUZZOMARCH 13, 2014
Continue reading the main storyShare This Page
- National District Attorneys Association.
He said prosecutors use the threat of tough sentences to persuade defendants to cooperate and help the government unravel criminal organizations.
“Rewarding convicted felons with lighter sentences because America can’t balance its budget doesn’t seem fair to both victims of crime and the millions of families in America victimized every year by the scourge of drugs in America’s communities,” Mr. Morrogh said.
Mr. Holder has also described prison reform as a matter of civil rights. African-Americans are disproportionately represented in prison: They make up 13 percent of the nation’s population, but 37 percent of the federal prison population.
The crack epidemic is one of the main reasons the prison population has grown so much. In 2010, Congress voted unanimously to reduce the 100-to-one disparity between sentences for crack cocaine offenses and those for powdered cocaine. Blacks received harsher sentences under those guidelines because crack has been more popular in black neighborhoods, while whites have been more likely to use powdered cocaine.
The Sentencing Commission writes the guidelines that judges must consider. It is soliciting comments on the proposed sentencing reductions and will vote, probably in April, on whether to carry them out. Unless Congress voted to reject the proposals, the commission’s changes would go into effect in November.
Until then, the Justice Department said Mr. Holder would tell federal prosecutors not to oppose any sentence that would fall under the more lenient guidelines.
“This straightforward adjustment to sentencing ranges, while measured in scope, would nonetheless send a strong message about the fairness of our criminal justice system,” Mr. Holder said. “And it would help to rein in federal prison spending while focusing limited resources on the most serious threats to public safety.”