US Justice Department orders tougher criminal punishments

"These reversals will be both substantively and financially ruinous, setting the Department back on a track to again spending one third of its budget on incarcerating people, rather than preventing, detecting, or investigating crime" Holder said of Sessions's decision in a statement on Friday.

The memo directs federal prosecutors to pursue the most serious charges possible against most criminal suspects.

Holder had asked prosecutors to avoid slapping low-level offenders with crimes that carried mandatory minimum sentences partly in order to help reduce US prison populations.

The Holder memo, issued in August 2013, instructed his prosecutors to avoid charging certain defendants with drug offenses that would trigger long mandatory minimum sentences.

FILE - In this November 20, 2015, file photo, a security vehicle patrols the perimeter of the Federal Correctional Complex in Butner, N.C. Attorney General Jeff Sessions has directed the nation's federal prosecutors to pursue the most serious charges possible against the vast majority of suspects, a reversal of Obama-era policies that is sure to send more people to prison and for far longer terms.

"This policy affirms our responsibility to enforce the law, is moral and just, and produces consistency", Sessions wrote in a memo to US attorneys made public early Friday.

"It's no coincidence that the Sessions memo was quietly signed on the same day the President was making major headlines for firing FBI Director Comey because of his investigation of Trump -- this policy is unjust and unwise and can't withstand even minimal public scrutiny", Durbin said.

Members of Congress reacted Friday with mixed reviews - some sharply critical - of Attorney General Jeff Sessions' new directive that could potentially ramp up criminal charges in cases involving nonviolent drug crimes. But any exceptions will need to be approved by top supervisors, and the reasons must be documented, allowing the Justice Department to track the handling of such cases by its 94 US attorney's offices.

"The most serious offenses are those that carry the most substantial guidelines sentence, including mandatory minimum sentences", Sessions later added. Holder's plan, known as "Smart on Crime", was an effort to ease federal prison overcrowding and preserve Justice Department resources for more serious, violent criminals.

Prosecutors and law-enforcement leaders also reacted with dismay to Sessions' memo, including Joyce Vance, the former U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Alabama. Prosecutors are to seek the most serious charges, which are likely to send more people to prison for longer terms.

"This is a key part of President Trump's promise to keep America safe", Sessions said in remarks at the Justice Department. "Instead, we must direct resources to treatment and to specifically combating violent crime", said Brett Tolman, a former USA attorney in Utah. That is sure to send more people to prison and for much longer terms by triggering mandatory minimum sentences.

The Obama policy shift coincided with U.S. Sentencing Commission changes that made tens of thousands of federal drug prisoners eligible for early release, and a clemency initiative that freed convicts deemed deserving of a second chance.

The new policy is expected to lead to more federal prosecutions and an increase in the federal prison population. Prosecutors, too, could use the threat of a mandatory minimum penalty to facilitate plea bargains, and some were irked that Holder's memo stripped them of that tool.

Sessions and other Justice Department officials argue Holder's approach sidestepped federal laws that impose such sentences and created inconsistency across the country in the way defendants are punished. "They deserve to be un-handcuffed and not micromanaged from Washington".

"I trust our prosecutors in the field to make good judgments", Sessions said.

Associated Press writer Errin Haines Whack in Philadelphia contributed.