Statement by AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka on Reducing Sentences for Non-Violent Drug Offenses

Washington, DC–(ENEWSPF)–March 13, 2014.  Attorney General Holder has made a thoughtful and progressive decision to endorse a plan that would reduce sentences for non-violent drug offenses and address the issue of mass incarceration.

For too long in America, we have been developing a new Jim Crow system for administering justice. In our courts and in our jails, “separate but equal” came to mean significantly harsher sentences for people of color. As with schools, buses, and…