For nonviolent offenders who are not career criminals, however, incarceration can be counterproductive.

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The American public strongly supports reducing time served for nonviolent offenders.

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So many nonviolent offenders crowd our prison system that the US Supreme Court has ordered California to release nearly a quarter of its prison population.

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For example, the BOP unilaterally abolished the shock incarceration program, spending unnecessary millions by replacing sentence reductions and increased home detention with prison time for nonviolent offenders with minimal criminal history.

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We place far too many nonviolent offenders behind bars.

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Nonviolent offenders are 60% of our prison population.

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The prisons are overflowing with nonviolent offenders.

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Maybe most encouraging of all is that Congress has introduced a bipartisan bill, the SAFE ACT, which would enact several criminal justice reform efforts including changes in sentencing for nonviolent drug offenders.

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Provided the crime was nonviolent and not repeat offenders.

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Unnecessary incarceration of nonviolent, low-level offenders also destroys families.

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