This is a good idea but I wonder how the for profit prison system will take this idea? They often have a contracts for a minimum number of inmates. Also should there not be rehab efforts coupled with the reduced sentence? We have way to many inmates incarcerated for a first world country if that is still what we are.

Non-violent (not plead down charges) should not be in jail period. Boot camps, transitional housing, rehab, etc sure. Many of these ‘crimes’ are against the state - lack of proper license, insurance, substance abuse, failure to appear, and are still warehoused like those that should never see the light of day.

Mandatory minimums remove judicial discretion. The trial judge, who hears all the evidence is in the best position to make sentencing decision, not some cookie cutter “mandatories”.

This is a no brainer. It's costing taxpayers on average $35,000 per year, per inmate. We need to end private for profit prisons that are full of these non violent drug offenders. How about giving them training and get them a job and I bet it would cost less than $35,000 per person, per year...

Most small time drug offenders need rehab. The money is better spent on that then the prison system. Judges should be able to make the call. VOTE YEAH!

Finally! A step in the right direction. However mandatory minimums should be eradicated completely! Make our judicial system great again!

Drug use is often associated with mental illness it is a disease. Punishing the ill with incarnation is like beating a toddler for spilling milk. Funding increased mental health services and making that a condition of release makes more common sense. Yes, it is true you can take a horse to water so to speak and no you can't make it drink but with no trough to drink from...

Jail should be for serious criminals not addicts

Reduce their time and pardon most of them. Legalize Cannabis for all Americans!

I feel by taking power from judges and juries, you bypass the whole point of the judicial system, where people trained in the law or people just like us can decide what our sentencing should be, not a politician that passed a bill at one time to look tough on crime to get re-elected.

The “War on drugs” is a failed policy. Addiction is a medical issue and must be treated as such. Preventive education is more cost effective than incarceration. Job training, health services, community building and improvement are more effective in providing alternatives to dealing drugs as a profession; legalization, regulation, and taxation of now illegal drugs (most of which were introduced as pharmaceuticals, and the research of their uses discontinued) would end the black market, end the violence, and provide funding for the preventive services as well as the treatment.

The war on drugs has been a colossal failure. Let the judges decide what to do with these low-level, non-violent offenders instead of arbitrarily condemning them to decades in an overcrowded prison system. These harsh mandatory sentences don't help anyone, including the public.

Change the laws too not just the byproduct of violating the law. Duh.

This War on Drugs has been a complete failure! Throwing people in prison for decades for low level drug offenses hasn’t stopped people from using drugs and minority communities such as African Americans have suffered the most from it. It’s time we focus on giving more discretion to judges with regards to sentencing and start treating drug abuse as a health problem rather than a criminal issue.

This should eliminate – not reduce – minimum sentences. Making war on medical issues and imprisoning people for addiction and mental illness belongs in the Middle Ages where we’re fast deteriorating in our country.

Do we truly live in a free society when people are locked up for smoking a joint? Let's not be hypocrites here

Putting nonviolent offenders in prison uses resources and accomplishes nothing. Mandatory counseling programs and community service programs would accomplish more if properly funded and staffed. Save prison for 3 strike and violent offenders.

It only makes sense to me to discontinue mandatory minimum sentences for nonviolent offenders. If the situation calls for it, then impose a harsher sentence, but we should at least have the option to give individuals a lesser sentence.