Holder: “We Will Never Prosecute or Incarcerate Our Way to Becoming a Safer Nation”; 1 in 100 Americans Behind Bars Inadvisable and Unsustainable, Financially and Morally
DPA's Ethan Nadelmann: Historic Significance of Holder’s Critique Cannot Be Denied
Attorney General Eric Holder on Thursday offered the Obama Administration’s most forceful critique to date of U.S. mass incarceration policies, at a meeting of the hemisphere's security ministers in Medellín, Colombia. He also emphasized the Obama Administration's efforts to scale back mandatory minimum sentencing policies.
“The path we are currently on is far from sustainable,” said Holder. “As we speak, roughly one out of every 100 American adults is behind bars.
"Although the United States comprises just five percent of the world’s population, we incarcerate almost a quarter of the world’s prisoners," Holder said. "While few would dispute the fact that incarceration has a role to play in any comprehensive public safety strategy, it’s become evident that such widespread incarceration is both inadvisable and unsustainable.
"It requires that we routinely spend billions of dollars on prison construction – and tens of billions more, on an annual basis, to house those who are convicted of crimes," said the Attorney General. "It carries both human and moral costs that are too much to bear. And it results in far too many Americans serving too much time in too many prisons – and beyond the point of serving any good law enforcement reason.”