The Attorney General of the United States, Eric Holder, announced Monday that certain drug offenses should not be prosecuted as directed by state and federal law. He is giving new instructions to federal prosecutors on how they should write their criminal complaints when charging low-level drug offenders, to avoid triggering the mandatory minimum sentences. Under certain statutes, inflexible sentences for drug crimes are mandated regardless of the facts or conduct in the case, reducing the discretion of prosecutors, judges and juries.
The Obama administration plans to change the way it charges nonviolent criminals in the hopes of reducing the prisoner population, a major policy shift aimed at reversing decades of increasing incarceration. Justice Department lawyers have worked for months on the proposals, which Holder wants to make the cornerstone of the rest of his tenure.
Officials said Mr. Holder is planning to:
- Direct federal prosecutors to file fewer charges that carry mandatory minimum sentences against suspects who aren’t violent and aren’t part of a large drug organization.
- Expand compassionate early release for elderly inmates who are no longer viewed as dangerous.
- Promote drug-treatment programs as prison alternatives.
These policy changes mark a major departure from how the United States is fighting the drug war, however, it does follow the national trend towards the acceptance of drug use. Recently, states like Colorado and Washington have legalized marijuana while cities like New York no longer arrest people found to posses smaller amounts of the gateway drug. Conservatives have endorsed tougher laws for decades and have seen lower crime statistics as a result. Liberals have long argued such laws have an unfair impact on minority defendants and warehouse people rather than prevent crime.
Federal, state and local budgets have taken a hit as more people have been locked up. Since 1980, the federal prison population—accounting for about one of every 10 people behind bars in the U.S.—has grown almost 800%, to almost 219,000. Nearly half of all federal inmates are serving time for drug crimes, according to the Federal Bureau of Prisons, which currently has more employees than the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
It can cost tens of thousands of dollars per year to incarcerate a single inmate. In 2010, it cost $80 billion to operate the nation’s prisons and jails, according to the federal government.
Under the changes proposed by Mr. Holder, prosecutors might avoid specifying the amount of cocaine a defendant allegedly possessed, rather than charging the person with possessing more than five kilograms—a charge that carries a mandatory minimum of 10 years in prison.
Such changes encourage lawlessness and selective prosecution of criminal behavior. Scripture predicts that lawlessness will be prevalent in the last days along with increase drug usage. The founders were correct in their observation that our laws and our form of government was only suited to a moral people. The reason we now see such a bloated prison system is not because the laws are unjust, but because our people are more easily given to immorality.
