According to the Center for Economic and Policy Research, the U.S. has the highest incarceration rate in the world. Using the most recent data available, in the U.S. 753 of every 100, 000 people are in prison or jail. This rate is 20% higher than Russia, the second place country and more than 25% higher than Rwanda, the third place country. The U.S. rate is over seven times higher than the median rate for the OECD countries and about 17 times higher than the rate in Iceland, the country with the lowest incarceration rate.

With the high incarceration rate comes additional problems. The U.S. prison system costs taxpayers over $75 billion, a figure that is larger than the GDP of 133 nations. Our prison population has grown by 800% since 1980. Seventy percent of the prison population is black or Hispanic and half of those imprisoned today were sentenced for drug infractions.

Given our exploding prison population and its unsustainable costs, it was welcome news to hear that Attorney General Eric Holder plans to allow thousands of prisoners to apply for reduced sentences. The Justice Department also will expand the pool of eligibility for presidential clemency for non-violent drug offenders serving long sentences due, primarily, to mandatory federal drug laws.

In 2010, President Obama signed the Fair Sentencing Act reducing unfair disparities in sentences imposed on people for offenses involving different forms of cocaine. But there’s still far too many people in federal prison who were sentenced under the previous administration and who, as a result, will have to spend far more time in prison than they would if sentenced today for exactly the same crime.

As more states legalize small amounts of pot, it makes sense both economically and morally to review the cases of those currently incarcerated for drug offenses. There is no justifiable reason that our prison population should be so significantly higher than Russia or third world countries like Rwanda, or that the system should be filled with so many non-violent drug offenders.