Attorney General Proposed New Prison Policy, Economic Move Or Ethical Decision?

In order to decrease prison population in America, Attorney General of the United States, Eric Holder has declared an outline of a new plan. On Monday, in a meeting of American Bar Association held in San Francisco, he declared the news. He is of the opinion that such reformations are of utmost necessary because it seems quite impossible to count human and moral costs of the present judicial system.

According to a reliable source, the plan of the Attorney General consists of several components. The plan proposed that the low-level drug offenders would no more charge with offenses including compulsory minimum sentence in case the offenders have no tie up with large organizations and gangs. The plan also suggested expansion of divergent programs that include community service and drug treatment of the Department of Justice. He proposed to utilize these divergent programs instead of imprisonment.

In addition to this, the plan would also wish to update the framework of the Justice Department for evaluating compassionate release for convicts facing adverse circumstances that include old age. As stated in the report of American Civil Liberties Union almost 13.5 percent of federal prisoners are aged 50 and more.

As informed by a nonprofit group, the Sentencing Project, these changes in protocol of the Justice Department would create a significant change that would affect numerous number of prison populace. It is informed that near about 25,000 drug convictions are filed in federal court every year, while 45 percent of these convictions are of low offenses.

It is predicted that a union of fiscal reality with the ethical consideration of Obama’s administration are the driving force of these changes. Holder revealed the recent report of the United States Sentencing Commission. The report showed the racial gap is gradually widening in prison sentencing, as it is found that black people are receiving 20 percent longer sentence for committing similar crimes as of the white people.

Holder remarked that this is not acceptable at any cost, as it is undeserving for the legal traditions of the nation. He even pointed out an interesting fact. The population of the United States has increased by approx 30 percent from 1980, while the prison populace has increased by almost 800 percent in the same period.

Another reason of the proposal is considered as budget cuts and sequestration scares. In the first part of this year, the Justice Department face a budget cuts of almost $1.6 billion that perhaps led them to execute such changes. The attorney general is in the opinion that offering the judge more discretion in applying obligatory minimum to certain drug offenders would enable to save billions of dollars of the nation.

According to the reliable source, several states have conducted different programs in order to prove the efficiency of the program that would reduce the number of non-violent drug lawbreaker. Holder cited the reference of Kentucky’s recent attempt to reduce recidivism that allow decreasing the number of population by more than 3,000 over the next decade and saves near about $400 million.