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Long that consisted of drug arrests, assault charges, domestic violence, i think, criminal trespass. it's what the left calls low level crimes. nonviolent crimes. but what they don't understand or what they can't understand, bill, is that these thugs don't wake up one day and start committing felonies. they start at the lower level and then they escalate to committing felonies. and unless you punish them early on you are going to get bad things happening like that. >> do you believe selling heroin, crack, methamphetamine is a violent crime? >> yes. i have said this on the show before. >> ebony...

Offers. a prosecutor has the ability to use diversion programs beings even on these types of charges. but generally that happens before trial. this defendant had a constitutional right to go to trial, and i think he went to trial because of the aggravated sexual assault counts. and i don't know what the plea offers were extended to him, but he had to make a decision. >> it would be 30 seconds, tom, that we have had a lot of talk about sexual assaults on campuses. >> absolutely. this is a tragedy. you hear about rape epidemic. sexual assaults and rapes happen. they should be prosecuted vigorous...

And so i am very appreciative of folks like dick durbin and corey booker alongside mike lee and rand paul and, you know other folks in the house who are working together to see if we can both reduce some of these mandatory minimums around non-violent drug offenses. again, i tend not to have a lot of sympathy when it comes to violent crime. when it comes to non-violent drug offenses is there work that we can do to reduce mandatory minimums create more diversion programs like drug courts then can we do a better job on the rehabilitation side inside of prisons so that we are preparing these folks...

Rate go down at the same time. which indicates the degree to which it's possible for us to think smarter about who we're incarcerating, how long we're incarcerating, how we're dealing with nonviolent offenders, how we're dealing with drug offenses, diversion programs, drug courts. we can do a better job of -- and save money in the process by initiating some of these reforms. and i've been really pleased to see that we've had republicans and democrats in congress who are interested in these issues as well. the one thing i will say, and this is going to be the last thing i say, is that i -- one ...

Rate go down at the same time, which indicates the degree to which it's possible to think smarter about who we're incarcerating and how long we're incarcerating and now are we dealing with nonviolent offenders and how are we dealing with drug offenses, diversion programs, drug courts. we can do a better job and save money in the process by initiating some of these reforms and i've been pleased to see that we've had republicans and democrats in congress who are interested in these issues as well. the one thing i will say, and this is going to be the last thing i say, is that -- one of the great...