Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments

SoylentNews is people

Politics

Jeff Sessions Reboots the Drug War

posted by on Tuesday May 16 2017, @04:08AM   Printer-friendly
from the guilty dept.

takyon writes:

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

Original Submission

 
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.
Jeff Sessions Reboots the Drug War | Log In/Create an Account | Top | 132 comments | Search Discussion
Display Options Threshold/Breakthrough Mark All as Read Mark All as Unread
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.

  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 16 2017, @06:26AM (5 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 16 2017, @06:26AM (#510412)

    > I voted for Trump but I am not in favor of a simple-minded approach to crime.

    lolwut?
    How in the world do you reconcile those two things?
    Trump was explicitly the candidate of simple-mindedness.
    He never once articulated an approach to anything more complex than mono-syllabic adjectives: Yuge! Great! The Best!

    Starting Score:    0  points
    Moderation   +3  
       Insightful=2, Touché=1, Total=3
    Extra 'Insightful' Modifier   0  
    Total Score:   3  

  • (Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday May 16 2017, @12:11PM (4 children)

    by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday May 16 2017, @12:11PM (#510499) Journal
    Have you ever voted for a candidate that exactly represented your interests?

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 16 2017, @04:29PM (1 child)

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 16 2017, @04:29PM (#510569)

      The lolz are in the justification. I voted for because I couldn't stand all the corruption.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 16 2017, @04:58PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 16 2017, @04:58PM (#510592)

        And you thought Trump was not corrupt... LOL!

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 17 2017, @02:48AM (1 child)

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 17 2017, @02:48AM (#510898)

      No, but Trump doesn't even remotely represent our interests; he's a typical authoritarian politician. He is far worse than just 'not perfect', and no amount of 'But that other candidate was even more evil!' will change that.

      • (Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday May 18 2017, @01:17AM

        by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Thursday May 18 2017, @01:17AM (#511479) Journal

        No, but Trump doesn't even remotely represent our interests

        Then your interests are quite irrelevant. We were speaking of people who voted for Trump not those who didn't.