Jeff Sessions’ Drug War Escalation Cruel and Stupid: New at Reason

The attorney general’s order to prosecutors to seek maximum sentences in drug cases is wrongheaded.

John Stossel writes:

President Trump’s attorney general, Jeff Sessions, ordered federal prosecutors to seek maximum penalties for drug-related crimes.
This is both cruel and stupid.

It’s cruel because Session’s 5,000 prosecutors must now push for long jail sentences even for people who pose no violent threat and for some who are utterly innocent.

It’s stupid because it will cost America a fortune but won’t make us safer.

The U.S. already locks up more people than any other country. We have 4 percent of the world’s population but more than 20 percent of the world’s prisoners.

This happened partly because of bad reporting by people like me. Decades ago, my colleagues and I made people more terrified of crime than they need to be, by covering all the grizzly details of local crimes.

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