Fronteras

The Justice Department will announce today changes to the way low-level drug offenses are sentenced, which could lead to shorter prison terms and an early release for people already behind bars.

Attorney General Eric Holder is expected to outline the department’s plan today in San Francisco.

Critics of the nation’s prison system say it’s overburdened by non-violent drug offenders, who are disproportionately minorities.

According to The New York Times, Holder is going after mandatory-minimum sentences. He’ll issue a memo to U.S attorneys offices across the country that prohibits prosecutors from describing the quantity of drugs in an indictment. Right now, drug quantity can automatically lead to minimum sentences.

Get convicted of selling five kilos of cocaine, for example, and you’ll go to prison for at least 10 years.

Drug policy related to low-level drug offenders is the primary cause of mass incarceration in the United States, according to the Global Commission on Drug Policy, a group that examines international approaches to combating drug use.

A 2011 report by the commission says the following:

* 40 percent of drug arrests in the U.S. are for simple possession of marijuana.

* In the United States, the prison population has increased from 300,000 in 1972 to 2.3 million people today.

* The American government currently spends more than $68 billion a year on incarceration.

The New York Times report says drug quantity should not be considered in the following circumstances: The alleged crime did not include violence; there were no weapons involved, or sales to children; the suspect is not involved in organized crime and has no significant criminal record.