New federal and state policies that treat lawbreakers with a lighter touch have resulted in a historic drop in the US prison population, United States Attorney General Eric Holder announced Tuesday.
Perhaps just as surprising, many conservative politicians who have often looked upon Mr. Holder as their nemesis basically agree with him.
The number of federal inmates has fallen by 4,800 since last year to a total of 215,000 the first time the federal prison population has registered an annual decline since 1980, according to The Washington Post. Holder wants to reduce the number a further 10,000 by 2016, which would be enough to leave six maximum security prisons empty.
His package of policing and justice reforms is designed to divert nonviolent criminals away from prison and is seen as a rebuke of the so-called 1994 crime bill, which expanded the list of felony crimes, pumped $10 billion into new prisons, and gave incentives to states to mass incarcerate even low level offenders.
Meanwhile, states including Texas, Georgia, and Pennsylvania, have taken similar steps, spurred to action by their large prison populations. The result is a broader shift in America's approach to justice, in which both conservatives and liberals are finding significant common ground.
This is nothing less than historic, Holder told a New York City audience. My hope is that were witnessing the start of a trend that will only accelerate.
Holder noted that policing and justice reform is being hotly debated around the country, and that the US has the chance to rise to the historic challenge and critical opportunity that is now right before us.
Some experts largely agree with Holder's assessment.
It is a historic moment to see this change in philosophy and to see the right and the left coming together on these issues, and to recognize that we need more effective approaches to public safety, says Michelle Deitch, an incarceration expert and professor at the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas in Austin. Id point out, though, that its a very big ship to turn around.
The trend is born of a dark flipside: The US, with 5 percent of the global population, now houses 25 percent of the worlds inmates, the majority of whom are incarcerated for nonviolent drug offenses.
See the original post here:
'Historic' drop in federal inmates comes as left and right find common ground