A years-long, largely bi-partisan effort to reform the criminal justice system in the U.S., the world’s preeminent jailer, is being undermined by Jeff Sessions. On Friday, the attorney general issued a memo directing federal prosecutors to “charge and pursue the most serious, readily provable offense,” with the “goal of achieving just and consistent results in federal cases.”

Sessions’ memo, issued after weeks of harsh-on-crime rhetoric, effectively reverses a 2013 memo issued by then-attorney general Eric Holder, which directed prosecutors to take a case-by-case approach, and to seek the toughest sentences only for violent offenders. The memo returns the Justice Department to a sentencing approach similar to the one taken by the George W. Bush Administration.

“This is a key part of President Trump’s promise to keep America safe,” Sessions said on Friday, after releasing the short memo to the public. “We know that drugs and crime go hand in hand,” he said. “Drug trafficking is an inherently violent business.” Sessions, who spent the height of the 1980s crack epidemic as a prosecutor, added U.S. attorneys “deserve to be un-handcuffed and not micromanaged from Washington.”

According to the Coalition for Public Safety, an organization that partners with both progressive and conservative groups to push criminal justice reform, there are upwards of two million people incarcerated in the U.S., a 500 percent increase over the past 30 years. One quarter of the world’s entire prisoner population is in the U.S. In a statement in response to Sessions’ memo, the group’s president Steve Hawkins, along with U.S. Justice Action Network’s Holly Harris, said:

Research has shown, time and again, that lengthy prison terms for lower-level offenders do not increase public safety. Federal prosecutors have a responsibility to enforce the law firmly, but need the flexibility to do so in ways that will best serve their communities and protect public safety. That’s why we have and continue to support congressional efforts to reform sentencing.

“Locking up people who don’t pose a threat to public safety is a waste of taxpayer money and law enforcement resources, and it doesn’t deter crime,” they added. Congress failed to pass a bipartisan reform bill last year, despite widespread support, and now, with the Justice Department’s shift in tone and official policy, a federal effort is less likely. States, even Republican bastions with high prison populations, are now leading the charge to reform how non-violent drug offenders are punished and treated.

While there are some Republicans who oppose a more lenient approach to incarceration, many prominent Republican senators–and activists like the Koch brothers–back reform. Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT), a prominent conservative advocate for criminal justice reform, wrote on Twitter on Friday: “To be tough on crime we have to be smart on crime. That is why criminal justice reform is a conservative issue”

Sessions’ memo does allow for “circumstances in which good judgement would lead a prosecutor to conclude that a strict application” of the new policy is “not warranted.” Holder, who was the attorney general from 2009 to 2015, responded to Sessions’ directive in a statement. “This absurd reversal is driven by voices who have not only been discredited but until now have been relegated to the fringes of this debate,” he said.

Alec Siegel

Alec Siegel is a staff writer at Law Street Media. When he’s not working at Law Street he’s either cooking a mediocre tofu dish or enjoying a run in the woods. His passions include: gooey chocolate chips, black coffee, mountains, the Animal Kingdom in general, and John Lennon. Baklava is his achilles heel. Contact Alec at ASiegel@LawStreetMedia.com.

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President Obama’s time in the White House is coming to an end, but he’s staying busy. He has made an effort to get as much done as possible before leaving; such as announcing the biggest protected marine monument in the world, signing the Sexual Assault Survivors’ Bill of Rights, and commuting the sentences of 944 inmates. Now, John Legend has another suggestion.

The Grammy Award winning musician wrote an open letter to Obama, published in Rolling Stone, asking him to pardon federal inmates who are jailed for non-violent drug offenses before January. In the letter, Legend praises the Obama administration for doing so much to end juvenile solitary confinement and to reduce the use of private prisons. As it is unclear what will happen when Donald Trump takes office, he urged the president to “bring justice to the thousands of families of non-violent drug offenders who have waited far too long for Congress to act.” He wrote:

In 2014, you set out to reinvigorate our country’s approach to clemency. Your actions to commute the sentences of 944 individuals, including 324 life sentences, is unprecedented in the modern era. Nonetheless, more action is needed to dismantle the unjust policies of the past 40 years.

He also said that approximately 36,000 non-violent drug offenders currently behind bars have asked Obama for pardon under his clemency initiative, and it’s unclear how many will be reviewed in time. That’s why he is suggesting categorical commutations, to end the injustices.

I wrote a letter to the President: https://t.co/gIIFVSp8CA

— John Legend (@johnlegend) December 9, 2016

Legend points out that drug addiction is not a moral failing, but a chronic health issue. There is also a big discrepancy in how slight variations in drugs are treated differently before the law. Crimes involving crack cocaine, which is more commonly used by black users and sold on the streets, are punished more severely than those involving powder cocaine, which is more expensive and more likely to be used by white people.

And for Legend, it’s also a personal issue. His mother struggled with depression and drug abuse, and ended up in prison when he was a teenager. Earlier this year he started the initiative Free America, with Assistant District Attorney Adam Foss of Suffolk County, Massachusetts, in an effort to change criminal justice policies and keep teens out of prison. He told the Guardian in July:

You begin to realize how much trauma and pain and abuse [the inmates] have been victims of themselves before they got to prison, and since they’ve been in prison. And you realize that it’s just a cycle that keeps repeating,

Hopefully, Legend’s efforts will not be for nothing when the next administration takes office.

Emma Von Zeipel

Emma Von Zeipel is a staff writer at Law Street Media. She is originally from one of the islands of Stockholm, Sweden. After working for Democratic Voice of Burma in Thailand, she ended up in New York City. She has a BA in journalism from Stockholm University and is passionate about human rights, good books, horses, and European chocolate. Contact Emma at EVonZeipel@LawStreetMedia.com.

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Arrests for small amounts of marijuana outnumbered arrests for all violent crimes combined last year, according to a new report released Wednesday by the American Civil Liberties Union and Human Rights Watch highlighting the abundance of drug possession crimes in America.

The 196-page report title “Every 25 Seconds: The Human Toll of Criminalizing Drug Use in the United States,” found that every 25 seconds in the U.S., someone is arrested possessing drugs for their personal use, and on any given day 137,000 men and women are behind bars in the U.S. for drug possession. In fact, one in nine arrests are for drug possession, amounting to over 1.25 million each year.

Interestingly enough, many of these people haven’t yet been convicted of a crime, but are being detained pretrial because they can’t afford to post bail–leading many defendants to “plead guilty simply to secure their release, in cases where they might otherwise want to go to trial.”

As a result, these convictions exclude them from job opportunities, public housing, quality education, welfare assistance, voting, and more, and subject them to discrimination and lifelong stigma.

“Rather than promoting health, criminalization can create new barriers to health for those who use drugs,” the report says. “Criminalization drives drug use underground; it discourages access to emergency medicine, overdose prevention services, and risk-reducing practices such as syringe exchanges.”

The authors of the report call for drug use to be treated as a public health issue, rather than a criminal issue. The report says:

Ending criminalization of simple drug possession does not mean turning a blind eye to the misery that drug dependence can cause in the lives of those who use and of their families. On the contrary, it requires a more direct focus on effective measures to prevent problematic drug use, reduce the harms associated with it, and support those who struggle with dependence. Ultimately, the criminal law does not achieve these important ends, and causes additional harm and loss instead. It is time for the US to rethink its approach to drug use.

Federal figures bolster the report’s findings. While drug-related arrests have drastically increased since 1979, drug use remains high. In 1979, less than 200 in 100,000 people were arrested on drug charges. By the mid-2000s, that ratio rose to 500 in 100,000, its peak. Today, federal figures estimate 400 in 100,000 people are arrested for drug use or possession.

Proponents of strict drug-use penalties argue that tough sentencing practices can deter use and will keep the public safe. For instance, since 1979, illegal drug use by children age 12 and up was at its highest rate in 2015, at just under 18 percent. That rate was much lower at the peak of drug-related arrests in the mid 2000s, but the full picture is much murkier than just that blip in time.

The report also found that while whites are more likely to use illicit drugs in general, black adults are more than two-and-a-half times as likely as white adults to be arrested for drug possession–furthering problems of racial discrimination.

 Alexis Evans also contributed to this story.

Alec Siegel

Alec Siegel is a staff writer at Law Street Media. When he’s not working at Law Street he’s either cooking a mediocre tofu dish or enjoying a run in the woods. His passions include: gooey chocolate chips, black coffee, mountains, the Animal Kingdom in general, and John Lennon. Baklava is his achilles heel. Contact Alec at ASiegel@LawStreetMedia.com.

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