Senator Dick Durbin continues to urge Congress to focus on treating non violent drug offenders as opposed to using prison time alone as a solution.

Durbin addressed the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on the bipartisan Sentencing Reform and Corrections Act of 2015. Durbin says the cost of incarceration is a habit Washington needs to kick.

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Four years ago, the Sentencing Commission learned that 55,000 federal inmates were doing time with mandatory minimum sentences for a drug crime. Durbin notes that's more than half of all federal drug offenders, and more than one quarter of all federal prisoners.

He negotiated the legislation which mean less time for certain nonviolent drug offenses and more time for violent criminals. Mandatory minimum sentences would be demphasized with judges gaining greater discretion at sentencing for lower-level drug crimes and greater efforts would be made to help prisoners re-enter society.