If she wants to go easy on a given defendant, she can indict for the most minor possible crime, present a skimpy criminal history, and downplay the offense.

CNN: Testing sentencing guidelines' constitutionality

The minor isn't being charged with a crime.

WSJ: Two Foreigners Kidnapped, One Raped in Rio, Police Say

Mandatory minimum sentences for drug offences, for example, have been a double disaster, diverting a lot of money from the war on serious crime and turning huge numbers of minor miscreants into hardened criminals.

ECONOMIST: Jesse Jackson��s wrong target

Yet if the DOJ had gotten its way, that minor violation would be a federal crime.

FORBES: Careful What You Click: The CFAA, The Ninth Circuit, And Your Right to Read This Blog

The vast majority of prisoners in any country are not violent criminals or dangerous psychopaths, but young men who have committed a non-violent property crime, or got into some relatively minor scrape with the law.

ECONOMIST: The craze for imprisonment

Women were forced into Magdalene laundries for a crime as minor as not paying for a train ticket, the McAleese report found.

BBC: Magdalene laundries: UK women's 'fast settlement' calls

The Conservative candidate for the job of Nottinghamshire police and crime commissioner is pulling out due to a "minor offence" committed 44 years ago.

BBC: Mike Quigley

"Like it or not, the archdiocese is canonically responsible for the financial care of a priest -- even a priest who has committed such a horrible crime and sin such as clergy sexual abuse of a minor, " the statement said.

CNN: Top U.S. archbishop linked to abusive priest payout plan

When serious bad guys get nabbed for a minor crime, it provides an opportunity to check for outstanding warrants on them and get them off the streets.

WSJ: Stopping Urban Crime Without Jail Time

Separate versions of federal bills on the issue passed the U.S. House and Senate this year, that would make it a crime to take a minor across state lines for an abortion.

NPR: Missouri Court Hears Case on Abortion Consent