This bill focuses on whether or not nonviolent offenders should be pardoned.
The file we currently have for this focuses on whether or not nonviolent offenders should be rehabilitated instead of punished. A lot of the evidence speaks to the importance of not pushing them and why it is bad to keep nonviolent offenders in jail.
Drug criminalization increases non-drug crimes by diverting scarce police resources and hurting public trust in police
DPA 17 Drug Policy Alliance (Non-profit organization). “It’s Time for the U.S. to Decriminalize Drug Use and Possession.” DPA Report. July 2017. JDN. hĴps://www.drugpolicy.org/ sites/default/files/documents/Drug_Policy_Alliance_Time_to_Decriminalize_Report_July_2017.pdf But, as with drug use rates, crime rates do not appear to correlate to the severity of criminal penalties. Countries that have decriminalized some or all drugs have not experienced significant increases in non-drug crimes, and some have even seen reductions in theft and other offenses. These benefits may derive from the significant police and court resources freed up by decriminalization and redeployed.79 Conversely, a substantial amount evidence points to the high opportunity cost of aggressively policing possession offenses, suggesting that aggressive polici