Attorney General Eric Holder will be announcing a policy shift today at the annual meeting of the ABA, simultaneously issuing new guidelines to U.S. attorney offices regarding drug prosecutions. The New York Times reports from Holder’s prepared remarks,
. . . “too many Americans go to too many prisons for far too long and for no good law enforcement reason,” Mr. Holder is planning to justify his policy push in both moral and economic terms.
It’s a start. New guidelines in a nutshell: “. . . prosecutors will be told that they may not write the specific quantity of drugs when drafting indictments for drug defendants who meet the following four criteria: their conduct did not involve violence, the use of a weapon or sales to minors; they are not leaders of a criminal organization; they have no significant ties to large-scale gangs or cartels; and they have no significant criminal history.” This would allow for a sentence less than would be required under the mandatory minimum law.
Meanwhile, Beyond Bars (a project of Brave New Foundation) in partnership with the Drug Policy Alliance has produced a short video “What Breaking Bad reveals about the War on Drugs.”
Watch video after the jump. It’s short (and shows violence of course). The end is actually pretty funny.
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