Jeff Sessions Poised to Return to Policies That Are Tough on Drug Crimes

Attorney General Jeff Sessions is poised to unveil new guidelines for federal prosecutors that return to a tough policy on drug crimes, rolling back the lenient ways of the previous administration, The New York Times reported.

President Donald Trump ran on a law-and-order platform and chose Sessions, a law-and-order former prosecutor to be the attorney general— no surprise, then, that Sessions is considering a return to Bush-era guidelines, the Times reported.

Sessions has criticized the Justice Department under former President Barack Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder as too soft on crime.

Holder encouraged federal prosecutors to use discretion in charging for drug crimes, especially ones that required mandatory sentencing.

While the Obama era successfully reduced the federal prison population, it left drug criminals on the street to commit more crimes, Sessions believes.

"Many violent crimes are driven by drug trafficking and drug trafficking organizations," Sessions wrote in a March memo to federal prosecutors. "We do have strong evidence that aggressive prosecutions of federal laws can be effective in combating crime."

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