In a meeting of the nation’s district attorneys in Minneapolis, Minn., U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions promised to rein in violent crime and to step up federal prosecutions. "We've got a lot of people who want to pass more gun laws,” he is quoted as saying in the Star Tribune, “but they are not as enthusiastic, it seems to me, about prosecuting the ones we got."
Sessions cited reports indicating that the violent crime rate in Minneapolis has increased six years in a row, reversing decades of progress. He also cited the latest numbers out of Chicago. “Yielding to the trend is not an option for America and certainly not to us,” he declared. He also remarked that he had recently sent out a directive on charging and sentencing, and concluded that, “In short, we have ended the policies that handcuffed our federal prosecutors.”
More than 250 officials from across the United States attended the conference. Sessions’ prepared remarks can be viewed here.
