by Thank you, John Oliver. He just did a great piece on this. (Along these lines, I still want to read Matt Taibbi’s book The Divide.) Thankfully, and miraculously, this is not becoming a democrat vs republican issue. Here is a republican-written op-ed in the Times also calling for reform.
Please watch John Oliver’s piece. Here is the most important part:
“But if we really want to address this problem permanently, we needs states and the federal government not just to repeal mandatory minimum sentences going forward, but to also pass laws so that existing prisoners can apply for retroactively reduced sentences.
“Because almost everyone has agreed that mandatory minimum laws were a mistake and we cannot have a system where people are continuing to pay for that mistake …”
