WASHINGTON (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 15th January, 2019) President Donald Trump's nominee for US Attorney General, William Barr, should raise serious concerns in upcoming Senate confirmation hearings due to his past support for mass incarceration and his rejection of criticism that the US justice system is biased against minorities, Human Rights Watch said in a press release.
"Though Barr was US Attorney General from 1991 to 1993, the policies that he supported led to mass incarceration due to unnecessary criminalization; laws requiring grossly disproportionate sentencing; and enormous racial disparities that persist in the criminal system," the release said on Monday.
When Barr was US Attorney General, he wrote the introduction for a Justice Department white paper, "The Case for More Incarceration," which argued that the United States was not incarcerating too many people but too few, and rejected claims of racial bias in the criminal system, the release explained.
The United States has the highest rate of incarceration in the world at 655 per 100,000, with a total of 2.2 million people behind bars, the release noted.
In the past, Barr has also called for repeal of a US Supreme Court ruling legalizing abortion, the release said.
In addition, Barr also defended the constitutionality of Trump's initial effort to ban people traveling to the United States from several Muslim-majority countries and has shown hostility toward the rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) community, the release added.
The confirmation hearings by the Senate Judiciary Committee will begin on Tuesday and Barr needs a majority of 100 Senators to be confirmed.
