Alleviate Overcrowding America?s federal prisons are in trouble. They?re so crowded they?re endangering the lives of inmates and?corrections officers, the director of the Federal Bureau of Prisons, Charles Samuels Jr.,?testified at a Senate hearing?on Wednesday. And the immense cost of confining so many people is draining vital resources from from other public safety endeavors, includinginvestigations and prosecutions. Politicians across the political spectrum, from Sens. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) to Rand Paul (R-Ky.), increasingly agree that something has to be done. Send fewer people to prison for?drug crimes. The problem:?There are 219,000 inmates in the federal prisons system -- compared with 25,000 in 1980. About half are there for drug offenses.