It was big news Monday when Attorney General Eric Holder told the American Bar Association in San Francisco, “Certain low-level nonviolent drug offenders who have no ties to large-scale organizations, gangs or cartels will no longer be charged with offenses that impose draconian mandatory minimum sentences.”

It was big news because the Obama administration finally looked to what it could do about racial disparities under federal jurisdiction – instead of pointing at what others in the criminal justice system are doing wrong.

It was big news because the administration finally has caught up with Republicans such as Sens. Rand Paul of Kentucky and Mike Lee of UtahPaul and Lee have co-sponsored bills with Dick Durbin of Illinois and Pat Leahy of Vermont to reform mandatory minimum sentences so that nonviolent small-time offenders don’t serve decades in prison while kingpins who can inform on them serve lesser time.

It’s big news that the administration finally is saying that it won’t prosecute cases it never should have touched to begin with. More here.  Debra J. Saunders.

Are you in favor of sentence reform? Why or why not?

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