Attorney General Jeff Sessions on Friday announced a new tough-on-crime policy that requires federal prosecutors to impose the highest charges and seek the longest sentences in criminal cases.

“Drug dealers are going to prison,” Sessions declared after getting an award from the NYPD’s sergeants’ union.

“If you are a drug trafficker, we will not look the other way, we will not be willfully blind to your misconduct.”

Sessions told the nation’s US attorneys in a memo to pursue the most serious charges possible against most suspects.

That would send more people to prison and for much longer terms by triggering mandatory minimum sentences.

“I have empowered our prosecutors to charge and pursue the most serious offense. It means that we are going to meet our responsibility to enforce the law with judgment and fairness. It is just simply the right and moral thing to do. This is a key part of President Trump’s promise to keep America safe,” Sessions said.

The change reverses Obama-era policies that aimed to ease federal prison overcrowding and show lenience to nonviolent, lower-level drug offenders.

But Sessions said the opioid scourge shows the need to return to tougher tactics.

“In 2015, more than 52,000 Americans died from a drug overdose. That’s a stunning number. According to a report by the New England Journal of Medicine, the price of heroin is down, its purity is up, and its availability is up. We intend to reverse this trend,” said the attorney general, a former federal prosecutor known for his hard line against illegal drugs.

He painted a portrait of American cities under siege by an epidemic of violent crime — though the nationwide murder rate is at record low levels.

“We are seeing an increase in violent crime in our cities, particularly in Baltimore, Chicago, Memphis and Milwaukee, St. Louis and many others. The murder rate has surged 10 percent nationwide, the largest increase in murder since 1968,” he said.

But the US homicide rate in 2014 was just 4.5 per 100,000. That follows a long downward trend and was the lowest homicide rate recorded since 1963 when the rate was 4.6 per 100,000, according to the FBI.

At the same time, the 30 largest US cities saw double-digit increases in their murder rates in 2016, according to a new year-end report, Sessions insisted that federal prosecutors would be fair.

“I trust our prosecutors in the field to make good judgments. They deserve to be un-handcuffed and not micromanaged from Washington. Rather, they must be permitted to apply the law to the facts of each investigation,” he said.

The ACLU said Sessions was “repeating a failed experiment” by encouraging prosecutors to pursue tougher charges against most suspects.

Udi Ofer, director of the organization’s Campaign for Smart Justice, said it was a throwback to the war on drugs, which “devastated the lives and rights of millions of Americans” and disproportionately hurt minorities.

But some prosecutors praised Sessions’ new policy.

The head of the National Association of Assistant United States Attorneys says the new guidance will make the public safer.

It will “restore the tools that Congress intended” federal prosecutors to use to punish drug traffickers and dismantle gangs, said Lawrence Leiser.