Eric Holder Calls for Decrease of Mandatory Minimum Sentences

Attorney General Eric Holder is calling for changes in the federal criminal justice system, and one change in particular would do away with some mandatory minimum sentencing policies that have sent many offenders to lengthy prison terms and have increased the cost of incarceration.

"The bottom line is that, while the aggressive enforcement of federal criminal statutes remains necessary, we cannot simply prosecute or incarcerate our way to becoming a safer nation,'' Holder will say, according to advanced excerpts of the release by the Justice Department. "We must never stop being tough on crime. But we must also be smarter on crime.''

Holder is planning to announce that he will be instructing federal prosecutors not to charge ordinary drug dealers with crimes that carry lengthy mandatory minimum sentences.

"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. They now will be charged with offenses for which the accompanying sentences are better suited to their individual conduct, rather than excessive prison terms more appropriate for violent criminals or drug kingpins," Holder will say.

Holder is also expected to announce that he will be expanding efforts to reduce federal prison populations by releasing elderly prisoners sooner by allowing U.S. attorneys not to prosecute some kinds of cases in federal court.

The effort is aimed to back down from the anti-crime measures instituted in the 1980s and 1990s. Similar initiatives at the state level have caused prison populations to drop, but the federal prisoner count has continued to soar above 219,000.