Washington: In a major shift in criminal justice policy, the Obama administration will move on Monday to ease overcrowding in federal prisons by ordering prosecutors to omit listing quantities of illegal substances in indictments for low-level drug cases, sidestepping federal laws that impose strict mandatory minimum sentences for drug-related offences.

Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr., in a speech at the American Bar Association's annual meeting in San Francisco on Monday, is expected to announce the new policy as one of several steps intended to curb soaring taxpayer spending on prisons and help correct what he regards as unfairness in the justice system, according to his prepared remarks.

A guard tower at the California State Prison, Sacramento in Folsom. Credit:New York Times

Saying that "too many Americans go to too many prisons for far too long and for no good law enforcement reason," Holder is planning to justify his policy push in both moral and economic terms.

"Although incarceration has a role to play in our justice system, widespread incarceration at the federal, state and local levels is both ineffective and unsustainable," Holder's speech says. "It imposes a significant economic burden - totaling $80 billion in 2010 alone - and it comes with human and moral costs that are impossible to calculate."