Aug 13, 2013 3 min read

The death of University of Maryland basketball star Len Bias from a cocaine overdose in June 1986 was a tragedy not only for his friends, family and admirers, but it also set in motion a string of events that has helped place many young men like him behind bars.

The outrage over his death at age 22, and all the promise that would be forever unfulfilled, prompted lawmakers in Washington, D.C., to push forward mandatory minimum sentences for drug offenders. It was one component in an aggressive effort to crack down on drug users and sellers dating back to the Nixon administration and it won bipartisan support. After years of being pilloried by Republicans for being excessively soft-hearted when it came to lawbreakers, Democrats on Capitol Hill were eager to parade their tough-on-crime bona fides by showing they wouldn’t coddle even mid-level or low-level offenders.

Almost 30 years later, it has become painfully clear that mandatory minimum sentences do not work. Sample some of the grim statistics: The United States has 5 percent of the world’s population, but 25 percent of its prisoners; the country’s population has grown by one-third since 1980, while its incarceration rate has increased by a stunning 800 percent; federal prisons are now operating at 40 percent beyond their official capacity, with 219,000 inmates, and nearly half of those behind bars for drug-related offenses. The prison-industrial complex swallowed up $80 billion on the state, federal and local levels in 2010.

On Monday, Attorney General Eric Holder characterized these costs, both to society at large and taxpayers, as “unsustainable.” Furthermore, to help break what he described as “a vicious cycle of poverty, criminality (that) traps too many Americans and weakens too many communities,” Holder announced that the Obama adminstration would seek to defang the mandatory minimum laws by ordering prosecutors to not list the quantities of substances seized for low-level drug cases. This shift could help ease prison overcrowding and lead to more constructive approaches to dealing with drug abusers.

While violent, dangerous criminals obviously need to do time, nonviolent offenders caught with small amounts of drugs might be better punished and rehabilitated through community service programs or treatment, rather than long stretches in a penitentiary. Those who used a weapon, have a long rap sheet, sold drugs to minors or are affiliated with gangs or cartels will not be afforded leniency under the plan.

This is a rare issue that could bring together both sides of the partisan divide in Washington, D.C. Republican Rand Paul, a senator from Kentucky and probable 2016 presidential candidate, has been outspoken in his opposition to mandatory minimum laws and has been working with Republican Sen. Mike Lee of Utah and Democratic Sens. Patrick Leahy and Richard Durbin, of Vermont and Illinois, respectively, to give judges more latitude in sentencing drug offenders.

Holder told a meeting of the American Bar Association Monday that the administration would also look to release elderly, nonviolent criminals who have served the majority of their sentences and seek alternative punishments for other kinds of nonviolent malefactors. These are also worthy goals.

Serving up rhetoric about locking them up and throwing away the key may be good on the stump, but reality has shown that it is not always the most beneficial approach. As Holder said, “We need to ensure that incarceration is used to punish and deter and to rehabilitate – not merely to warehouse and forget.”