Attorney General Eric Holder has announced a major shift in federal sentencing policy, calling on federal prosecutors to sidestep mandatory minimum sentences for low level, non-violent drug offenders.

“Our system is in many ways broken,” Holder told the American Bar Association in San Francisco. “As the so-called war on drugs enters its fifth decade, we need to ask whether it has been fully effective and usher in a new approach...”

Joining us on Chicago Tonight at 7:00 pm to help us understand the new guidelines is University of Chicago law professor, Alison Siegler. She is the director of the university's Federal Criminal Justice Clinic, which represents indigent defendants in federal court. Read Holder's full memorandum.

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