Sen. Jeff Sessions has been one of the leaders in the opposition to proposals for mass sentencing reduction for felony-level criminals.  As he noted in remarks on the Senate floor this week:

"According to the F.B.I. statistics released just this year, the number of violent crimes committed across the country was up in the first half of 2015 compared with the same period of 2014. The number of murders, rapes, and assaults and robberies were all up over the first six months of 2015. There was a 6.2 percent increase in murders, [and] violent crime across America rose 5.3 percent in large cities... What I'm seeing is, in my judgment, that this is a long-term trend. I think we're going to continue to see this increase. I wish it weren't so, but I'm afraid it is...

"When you have 20, 30, 40 percent increases in crime, you're talking about doubling the crime rate, the murder rate in America in two or three years, after we spent 20 years bringing it down by half. We've got to be sure what we are doing here, colleagues, is smart and we're not signing death warrants for thousands of American innocent citizens."

The tape of his remarks is here.