Attorney General Eric Holder announced Tuesday that the federal prison population has decreased by nearly 5,000 inmates this year, the first such reduction in more than three decades.
“We are finally moving in the right direction, at least at the federal level,” Holder said at a criminal justice conference at New York University.
“My hope is that we’re witnessing the start of a trend that will only accelerate,” the nation’s top lawyer added. “The United States will never be able to prosecute or incarcerate its way to becoming a safer nation.”
According to the Justice Department, there were 4,800 fewer inmates in federal prisons compared to last year — the first decrease since 1980.
However, state prison populations increased last year for the first time after shrinking every year since 2009.
The announcement is part of a broader Obama administration effort to devote more resources to violent crimes than petty drug offenses. Both President Obama and Holder have railed against so-called mandatory minimum sentences, saying the punishments disproportionately affect minorities.
Holder also used his appearance in New York City to highlight an ongoing Justice Department civil-rights investigation into the police shooting of 18-year-old Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo.
“Will we yet again turn a blind eye to the hard truths that Ferguson exposed, burying these tough realities until another tragedy arises?” the attorney general asked the New York audience, alluding to the protests in the St. Louis suburb.
As for the federal prison population, Holder estimated that the number of such inmates would decrease by more than 2,000 over the next year and almost 10,000 the following year.
“This is nothing less than historic,” Holder said. “And to put these numbers in perspective, 10,000 inmates is the rough equivalent of the combined population of six federal prisons, each of which was filled to capacity.”
