It costs approximately $80 a day to house a person in a North Carolina prison. With over 37,000 people serving time in our state, officials have understandably prioritized reducing prison populations with considerable gusto over the past decade. While many of those efforts have been successful, the effect of one particular change has yet to be seen - that of the U.S. Sentencing Commission's unanimous decision to reduce the sentencing guidelines for most federal drug trafficking charges beginning Sunday.

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