Smart on Crime in the U.S. of A.
When United States Attorney General Eric Holder made gave his “Smart on Crime” remarks to the American Bar Association’s Annual Convention in San Francisco on August 12, 2013, it “launched a comprehensive review of the criminal justice system in order to identify reforms that would ensure federal laws are enforced more fairly and—in an era of reduced budgets—more efficiently”.
If you’ve been following the ‘smart on crime’ news from the United States since then, it appears they are leaving few stones unturned. In the case of mandatory minimum sentencing for drug offenses, there seems to be a lot of evidenced-based research to support their justice reform directions.
As an example, take a look at these Federal Bureau of Prisons infographic charts in a recent Huffington Post article on the impact of prison overcrowding:
U.S. Prison Population As Of Jan. 25, 2014
Data is limited due to the availability of offense-specific information.
