I have a question about the usage of the verb "measure" in this website:
Trafficking charges are as serious as it gets in the drug unit. If convicted of trafficking, a defendant is faced with a mandatory active jail sentence — the length of which depends on the level of trafficking and the substance alleged. These jail sentences are measured in years, not days, and the only discretion afforded to judges who are handing down the sentence is in the realm of substantial assistance, which means working for the state to help them catch other drug dealers.
I understand how to measure a distance, a length, or temperature. But "to measure a jail sentence" seems off. As always, this usage could not be found in dictionaries accessible to me. Could the usage be some sort of figurative extensions only known to native speakers?