Meet Five People Serving Draconian Drug Sentences Thanks To Mandatory Minimum Laws | ThinkProgress

Meet Five People Serving Draconian Drug Sentences Thanks To Mandatory Minimum Laws | ThinkProgress: In a significant shift of law enforcement priorities, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder announced Monday that he would order all federal prosecutors to avert charges that carry harsh mandatory minimum prison sentences for low-level drug offenders. “It’s clear – as we come together today – that too many Americans go to too many prisons for far too long, and for no truly good law enforcement reason,” he said at the American Bar Association’s annual meeting in San Francisco. Holder’s announcement will spare some drug defendants overly punitive mandatory minimum prison sentences with no opportunity for early release, and signifies public rejection of over-incarceration. But it will take an act of Congress and more state reforms to end the system that has filled our jails with people like these: