Sessions Overturns Reforms of Mandatory Minimum Drug Sentencing

FEATURING ANTHONY PAPA – Attorney General Jeff Sessions has issued a memo directing federal prosecutors to seek the maximum penalties for crimes, including drug-related offenses. The move is Sessions’ most serious as Attorney General so far and overturns a major criminal justice reform of the Obama administration.

In his memo, Sessions writes, “This policy affirms our responsibility to enforce the law, is moral and just, and produces consistency.” Under Obama Attorneys General Eric Holder and Loretta Lynch began taking steps to address the skyrocketing federal prison population. All of that may now be overturned under Donald Trump.

Find more information at www.15tolife.com and at www.drugpolicy.org.

Anthony Papa, manager of media and artist relations with the Drug Policy Alliance, he is the author of This Side of Freedom: Life After Clemency, and 15 to Life: How I Painted My Way to Freedom, a memoir about his experience of being sentenced to state prison for a first-time, nonviolent drug offense under New York’s draconian Rockefeller Drug Laws.