“Too many Americans go to too many prisons for far too long and for no truly good law enforcement reason. We cannot simply prosecute or incarcerate our way to becoming a safer nation.” That’s what Attorney General Eric Holder said in a speech in which he called for an end to some mandatory minimum sentences for nonviolent drug offenders which makes a lot of sense because we are filling our prisons with people who probably shouldn’t be there, certainly not for as long as many of them are, and besides, many of these laws are enforced unfairly since a white person in a nice neighborhood can walk down the street with a backpack of weed barely visible through fresh plumes of smoke without suffering any consequences (or so I’m told) while people in poor neighborhoods are caught in a hopeless cycle of incarceration for which society foots the enormous bill associated with jailing a large percentage of our population, so let’s hope Holder’s speech actually results in some concrete changes to the system and we can put an end to these run-on sentences.

+ In some countries, prisoners are given pot to create a more peaceful environment.

+ A federal judge has ruled that NYC’s Stop and Frisk program is unconstitutional and often results in “a demeaning and humiliating experience.” There have been nearly 5 million stops in the past decade or so.