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Attorney General Jeff Sessions said Friday that he has directed his federal prosecutors to pursue the most severe penalties possible, including mandatory minimum sentences, in his first step toward a return to the war on drugs of the 1980s and 1990s that resulted in long sentences for many minority defendants and packed U.S. prisons.
[...] In the later years of the Obama administration, a bipartisan consensus emerged on Capitol Hill for sentencing reform legislation, which Sessions opposed and successfully worked to derail.
In a two-page memo to federal prosecutors across the country, Sessions overturned former attorney general Eric H. Holder's sweeping criminal charging policy that instructed his prosecutors to avoid charging certain defendants with offenses that would trigger long mandatory minimum sentences. In its place, Sessions told his more than 5,000 assistant U.S. attorneys to charge defendants with the most serious crimes, carrying the toughest penalties.
More at Washington Post, Fox News, Huffington Post, The Hill
Memorandum on Department Charging and Sentencing Policy - US Department of Justice PDF
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 16 2017, @04:11AM (13 children)
this must be funded by the owners of privatized prisons who are looking for more income
tax increases will be next (or some useful services will be cut)
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 16 2017, @04:28AM (4 children)
> this must be funded by the owners of privatized prisons
Or all the companies that get to use the slave labor of prisoners.
Oh, you thought slavery was outlawed by the 13th amendment? Nope.
Section 1. Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.
Section 2. Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.
https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/amendmentxiii [cornell.edu]
(Score: 3, Insightful) by hemocyanin on Tuesday May 16 2017, @07:15AM (3 children)
When offshoring just isn't profitable enough.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 16 2017, @11:10AM (2 children)
Finally, jobs that H1B's can't do...SN must be happy about this.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 16 2017, @12:17PM (1 child)
SN is a single person?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 16 2017, @04:24PM
Yes they are.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 16 2017, @11:23AM (5 children)
About ten years ago people followed the money and found out that the Muslim Brotherhood and Hezbollah controlled around 80% of the world drug trade. Then you stopped hearing about it, and now the schools are teaching kids to support Islam while the big social media companies are banning atheist groups. This is probably not a coincidence.
(Score: 2, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 16 2017, @12:06PM
> the Muslim Brotherhood and Hezbollah controlled around 80% of the world drug trade.
Apparently they also supply 100% of your hallucinogenics.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by khallow on Tuesday May 16 2017, @12:08PM (3 children)
About ten years ago people followed the money and found out that the Muslim Brotherhood and Hezbollah controlled around 80% of the world drug trade.
That's a ridiculous claim to make. First, it ignores recreational drugs that are widely legal, alcohol and tobacco. Second, the only illegal drug primarily produced in the Middle East is heroin. While that has significant value, it's far from the only illegal drug. Third, Eastern Asia, Americas, and European trade are collectively dominated by other ethnic groups.
Finally, if those groups were really so strongly in control of roughly 1% of the global economy, we'd see the money and we wouldn't first hear of this claim from an AC ten years later.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 16 2017, @01:38PM (2 children)
You forgot to include Marijuana, legal in many countries and quite a few US states now. Near legal in yet more countries.
Its ok, I know you don't approve, only tea and biscuits for that old boy!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 16 2017, @03:21PM
What about SSRIs and opioid-based pain killers? If I'm not mistaken, both are highly addictive, and withdrawal from an SSRI drug can involve psychosis, seizures, and hospitalization.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday May 16 2017, @11:32PM
As to marijuana, I voted for its legalization in the US state of Colorado.
(Score: -1, Redundant) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 16 2017, @01:22PM
They're trying to build a prison
They're trying to build a prison
Following the rights movement
You clamped on with your iron fists
Drugs became conveniently
Available for all the kids
Following the rights movement
You clamped on with your iron fists
Drugs became conveniently
Available for all the kids
I buy my crack, my smack, my bitch right here in Hollywood
(nearly 2 million Americans are incarcerated in the prison system, prison system of the US)
(They're trying to build a prison)
They're trying to build a prison
They're trying to build a prison
They're trying to build a prison
(for you and me to live in)
Another prison system
Another prison system
Another prison system
(for you and me)
Minor drug offenders fill your prisons you don't even flinch
All our taxes paying for your wars against the new non-rich
Minor drug offenders fill your prisons you don't even flinch
All our taxes paying for your wars against the new non-rich
I buy my crack, my smack, my bitch right here in Hollywood
(the percentage of Americans in the prison system, prison system, has doubled since 1985)
(They're trying to build a prison)
They're trying to build a prison
They're trying to build a prison
They're trying to build a prison
(for you and me to live in)
Another prison system
Another prison system
Another prison system
For you and I, for you and I, for you and I.
They're trying to build a prison
They're trying to build a prison
They're trying to build a prison for you and me
Oh, baby, you and me.
All research and successful drug policy show that treatment should be increased
And law enforcement decreased while abolishing mandatory minimum sentences
All research and successful drug policy show that treatment should be increased
And law enforcement decreased while abolishing mandatory minimum sentences
Utilising drugs to pay for secret wars around the world
Drugs are now your global policy, now you police the globe
I buy my crack, my smack, my bitch right here in Hollywood
Drug money is used to rig elections and train brutal corporate sponsored dictators around the world
(They're trying to build a prison)
They're trying to build a prison
They're trying to build a prison
They're trying to build a prison
(for you and me to live in)
Another prison system
Another prison system
Another prison system
(for you and me)
For you and I, for you and I, for you and I, for you and I
They're trying to build a prison
They're trying to build a prison
They're trying to build a prison for you and me
Oh, baby, you and me~
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 17 2017, @06:14AM
How true is this?
http://crooksandliars.com/2017/04/sessions-getting-rich-filling-private [crooksandliars.com]
I'm too lazy to check out how much richer he would really get from these alleged investments. Probably not that much richer.