MIDWEST CITY — Critics of criminal justice reforms approved by Oklahoma voters in November spent an hour Thursday railing against them before yielding the lectern to an apparent ally in their fight: America's top law enforcement officer.

“Despite the national surge in violent crime and the record number of drug deaths over the last two years, there is a move to even lighter sentences,” Attorney General Jeff Sessions told a gathering of the state's sheriffs. “We must be careful here. Federal prison population is down 15 percent, the average sentence is down 19 percent. Crime is up.”

Without mentioning Oklahoma's reforms specifically, Sessions issued bleak warnings about American society — increases in violent crime, “a rise in vicious gangs,” threats from terrorism, an erosion of juvenile discipline — during a closed-door speech in the Rose State College student center.

“I'm afraid we don't have a sentencing problem; we have a crime problem. If we want to bring down our prison population then we should bring down crime,” Sessions said.