[url=http://www.aljazeera.com/news/americas/2013/08/201381217244533902.html]Eric Holder announces plans to cut back minimum sentences for some drug offences in move to ease prison overcrowding.[/url] [quote]US Attorney General Eric Holder has called for major changes to the country's criminal justice system, announcing measures aimed at easing prison overcrowding. The measures will scale back the use of harsh prison sentences for certain drug-related crimes, divert people convicted of low-level offences to drug treatment and community service programmes and expand a prison programme to allow for release of some elderly, non-violent offenders. In a speech at the American Bar Association in San Francisco on Monday, Holder said he is mandating a change to Justice Department policy so that low-level, non-violent drug offenders with no ties to large-scale organisations, gangs or cartels will not be charged with offences that impose mandatory minimum sentences. Mandatory minimum prison sentences - a product of the government's war on drugs in the 1980s - limit the discretion of judges to impose shorter prison terms. Under the altered policy, the attorney general said defendants will instead be charged with offences for which accompanying sentences "are better suited to their individual conduct, rather than excessive prison terms more appropriate for violent criminals or drug kingpins".[/quote] Click the link above for the full story. What do you guys think? This is gonna start the big changes we may be seeing soon. Once the Feds start to loosen up on charges, there can be easier talks about the specifics of American Drug laws. Do you think this prison reform will do the trick in terms of financial costs?