Of those, 725 have been charged and some are being handed stringent sentences by courts that run 24 hours in some areas.
The government's former terror adviser has intervened in the row over the sentencing of people who took part in last week's riots, accusing ministers of appearing to "steer" the courts into handing down the more stringent sentences.
As those hoping to change the stringent sentencing laws have gained political will from the decline in violent crime, the other side, too, has used the decline to assert its case.
He also had the misfortune to commit his crime in 2001, as the federal government was adopting new and more stringent sentencing guidelines, and to be caught after they took effect.
Gen. Barry McCaffrey, the head of the White House drug control policy office, has criticized the stringent mandatory sentences, as have New York's Roman Catholic bishops.
The Senate proposal does not directly address the efforts by the governor and the Democratic leadership of the Assembly to ease the state's stringent mandatory drug-sentencing laws.
The initiative directed prosecutors filing drug charges not to include information — such as the quantity of drugs seized — which might trigger stringent mandatory minimum sentences when bringing charges against nonviolent individuals not linked to gangs or large-scale drug organizations.
Since 2002, the number of prisoners aged 60 and older has more than doubled a direct result of increased sentence lengths, stringent license conditions and the recent surge in historic sex abuse cases.
Arkansas, for example, has one of the nation's most stringent laws, according to the Sentencing Project, a research and advocacy organization.
Greely notes that the standards for admitting evidence in sentencing hearings are less stringent than those for evidence used to establish a defendant's innocence or guilt.
