Christian Science Monitor
Eric Holder proposes major shift in 'war on drugs'
By Warren Richey
August 12, 2013

With the U.S. facing massive prison overflow, Attorney General Eric Holder called Monday for major changes to the criminal justice system that would scale back harsh sentences for certain drug related crimes.

Speaking at the annual meeting of the American Bar Association in San Francisco, Mr. Holder said the effort was aimed at reducing the number of nonviolent offenders clogging the nation’s prisons.

“Too many Americans go to too many prisons for too long for no good law enforcement reason,” he said.

The Obama administration was undertaking a pragmatic approach to recalibrate the federal criminal justice system, Holder said, and to address the stark racial disparity in American prisons.

He noted that according to one report, black male offenders receive sentences nearly 20 percent longer than those imposed on white males convicted of similar crimes.

“This isn’t just unacceptable,” he said, “it is shameful.”

“Although incarceration has a significant role to play in our justice system – widespread incarceration at the federal, state, and local levels is both ineffective and unsustainable,” the attorney general said. 

The US has 5 percent of the world’s population but incarcerates almost a quarter of the world’s prisoners, Holder said. In 2010 that policy cost US taxpayers $80 billion. 

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