" Extreme sentencing brings out the worst in us as a society. Our punitive policies—undergirded by injustice and illogic—have resulted in an overcrowded federal prison system in which nearly half the people held within are serving time not for violent crimes but for drug offenses. When we implement sweeping policies that punish with consequences that endure long after sentences have been served; when we reduce punishment to the unthinking algorithms of mandatory minimums that remove any possibility for mitigation or acknowledgment of individual circumstance, let alone compassion; when we develop punishments that ostensibly target criminal behavior but instead devastate lives, families, and communities, we allow anger to reign over reason and we prioritize revenge over safety and justice. "

― Christine Montross , Waiting for an Echo: The Madness of American Incarceration