I ask that you do not support Attorney General Jeff Sessions’ archaic, backwards thinking, unnecessarily punishing and costly hard-line stance on crime. It is wrong and a huge mistake.

Please back the bipartisan effort being put forth by Sens. Rand Paul and Patrick Leahy which calls for intelligent sentencing reform that works, and is less costly for taxpayers.

The assumption that stiff penalties make crime stop, has been proven time and again to be false and extraordinarily expensive.

Drug addiction is a health-care crisis, not an incarceration problem.

Instead, spend more money on education and rehabilitation and stop Sessions’ terrible attempt at criminal justice reform.

— Max McGrath, Anchorage
Originally published in the Alaska Dispatch News