AG backs reduced sentence for some drug offenders
By Scott Neuman, NPR
Attorney General Eric Holder is backing a proposal to shorten sentences for nonviolent drug dealers in an effort reduce federal spending on prisons.
Holder appeared before the United States Sentencing Commission on Thursday to announce his support of the panel’s recommendations to trim federal guidelines for sentencing of drug traffickers to 51 months from 62 months.
“This overreliance on incarceration is not just financially unsustainable, it comes with human and moral costs that are impossible to calculate,” Holder said, adding that the harshest penalties should be reserved for “dangerous and violent drug traffickers.”