Prison reform moves ahead despite Sessions fearmongering
Senate lawmakers on Thursday move forward legislation that would eliminate or reduce mandatory minimum sentences for certain nonviolent offenders.
The Senate Judiciary Committee voted 16-4 to advance legislation that would weaken mandatory minimum sentences.
Attorney General Jeff Sessions, along with law enforcement organization, have urged lawmakers not to proceed with the legislation.
The legislation, Sessions said, “would reduce sentences for a highly dangerous cohort of criminals, including repeat dangerous drug traffickers and those who use firearms, and would apply retroactively to many dangerous felons, regardless of citizenship or immigration status.”
“In my opinion, if passed in its current form, this legislation would be a grave error,” Sessions added.
Sessions comments to Congress likely come from pressure put on the Trump administration by police organizations
“Sheriffs will have to arrest most of them again at the county level and that will shift the cost and responsibility to us without fixing the underlying problems of violent crime and drug and human trafficking in the country,” said a letter to Trump from the National Sheriffs’ Association.
“At a time when our nation is being ravaged by an epidemic of overdoses from the use of heroin and opioids, it seems at variance with common sense and sound policy to drastically reduce sentences for drug traffickers and then apply these reduced sentences retroactively,” said the National Fraternal Order of Police.
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