Jailing the small fry

An unintended consequence of the war on drugs: Mandatory minimum sentences that prevailed through the 1980s and 1990s filled U.S. prisons with low-level offenders, at great expense to taxpayers and to the country’s black and Hispanic communities. Cities, meanwhile, did not get safer.

In 2013, then-U.S. attorney general Eric Holder changed course, announcing a Smart on Crime initiative that sought shorter sentences for nonviolent drug offenders and reserved tougher charges for violent criminals and high-level drug traffickers. Federal prosecutors stopped throwing the book at small-fry defendants.

That approach won broad backing because it sought to counter the social devastation caused by mass incarceration while directing resources to efforts that would have the greatest impact on the illegal drug trade.

That trend is sure be reversed as Jeff Sessions, President Donald Trump’s attorney general, rescinded Holder’s initiative and embraced a return to mandatory minimum sentences for nonviolent drug offenders. In a letter, 15 state attorneys general asked Sessions to rescind his directive and meet with them to talk about a better approach. We hope he heeds their request.

The focus should be on prosecuting the traffickers who rely on violence to grow and protect their predatory enterprise. There’s little return in filling prisons with their customers.