Former Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates rebuked Attorney General Jeff Sessions’ “harsh” approach to drug crime in an op-ed for The Washington Post published Friday night.
In the op-ed, which is titled “Making America scared again won’t make us safer,” Yates criticized Sessions’ directive, which was issued last month, in which he told federal prosecutors to “charge and pursue the most serious, readily provable offense” in drug cases, including seeking mandatory minimum sentences.
The directive undid a policy by former Attorney General Eric Holder dubbed Smart on Crime that instructed prosecutors to reserve the toughest charges for high-level traffickers and violent criminals. The policy was a key part of bipartisan momentum towards criminal justice reform that has been building in Washington, D.C., for years, and has been implemented in states across the country.
“All across the political spectrum, in red states and blue states, from Sen. John Cornyn (R-Tex.) and the Koch brothers to Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) and the American Civil Liberties Union, there is broad consensus that the ‘lock them all up and throw away the key’ approach embodied in mandatory minimum drug sentences is counterproductive, negatively affecting our ability to assure the safety of our communities,” Yates wrote. “But last month, Attorney General Jeff Sessions rolled back the clock to the 1980s, reinstating the harsh, indiscriminate use of mandatory minimum drug sentences imposed at the height of the crack epidemic.”
Sessions has explained the policy shift as a response to a rise in murder rates in some U.S. cities.
Yates counters that violent crime rates remain at historic lows and that “there is also no evidence that the increase in violent crime some cities have experienced is the result of drug offenders not serving enough time in prison.”
She cited a recent study by the bipartisan U.S. Sentencing Commission that found drug defendants with shorter sentences were slightly less likely to commit crimes when released from prison than those sentenced with more severe penalties.
Before Sessions was confirmed as attorney general, President Trump fired Yates as the acting leader of the Justice Department after she refused to defend his travel ban in court.
