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Arguments Against Mandatory Minimums

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The initial thinking behind the creation of minimum mandatory sentences was created by congress to aim in the capture and imprisonment of high level drug traffickers, and deter others from entering into drug trafficking or using illegal substances, which would create a safer society. However, the nation prison has been expanded with low level street drug dealers, and the accessibility to illegal drugs is more obtainable then before the enactment of the mandatory sentencing act. In fact, the number of drug offenders in federal prisons has increased 21 times since 1980. Contrary to what congress has believed in the past about the dangers of crack cocaine compared to that in powder form has been proven to be untrue, but little has been done to reduce the number of prisons affected by that belief. More interestingly, the drugs that are more common to be either produce, used or sold by African-Americans are given harsher penalties than drugs that are often used by the white population such as powder cocaine. Which has in turn, greatly contributes to the high incarceration rates among blacks, and the discretions of sentences given to blacks over other races. The heightened prison population has affected the taxpayers. Due to a …show more content…

In fact the data shown that half of the drug offenses of offenders involved crack cocaine, followed by marijuana offenses. The Bureau of Prisons has reviled that well over 70% of the recent prison growth is related to the mandatory minimum sentencing. As of today only 3 percent of federal cases ever go to trial. Many prosecutors use the threat of mandatory minimums to coerce guilty pleas and longer sentences to offenders, or use the small street dealer to build a case against the leaders of the criminal

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759 Words | 4 Pages

According to the article, The Drug War, Mass Incarceration, and Race “ Black people comprise 13 percent of the U.S. population,10 and are consistently documented by the U.S. government to use drugs at similar rates to people of other races.11 But black people comprise 31 percent of those arrested for drug law violations,12 and nearly 40 percent of those incarcerated”. Despite the fact that colored people are minorities in the country still, make up 1/3 of the people arrested because of the drug policy. The policy effective created to target the minorities by making the cocaine the main focus of the drug. “America of the poor, where, amid hopelessness and lack of education, people will suffer the worst consequences of cocaine”(Kerr, 1) which in many poor communities lived the colored minorities, this made it easier for the police officer to target and arrest the

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516 Words | 3 Pages

Since, the majority of African-Americans live in areas of drug involvement, they are more likely to be racially profiled and investigated. This has created an uneven ethnic ratio in prisons and produced stereotypes that affect children that prevent them from becoming abiding citizens.

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1069 Words | 5 Pages

In the past 40 years, drug offenses have been on the rise as a priority offense. According to Prison Policy, 1 in 5 incarcerated inmates are locked up for a drug offense. At the same time, black people make up 40% of the prison/jail population, which is more than the white population of 39%. Considering that black people only make up 13% of the nation, this disproportionate rate of black people being arrested is quite evident. Conversely, when it comes to drugs, black people are the highest demographic arrested for drug offenses, even though all races and ethnicities sell drugs at very similar rates.

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670 Words | 3 Pages

Due to the fact that drug courts are working to reduce crime, the policies and practices of the US government may have to be changed or strengthened in favor of drug courts. For example, in the Journal Do Drug Courts Work? Getting Inside the Drug Court Black Box (Goldkamp, White, Robinson, 2001), the authors say “Nevertheless, these findings also suggest that variation in drug court out comes may be explained by changes in the operation of the drug court and its ability to deliver the treatment and deterrent effects postulated by the collection of components inside the drug court black box”. This clearly shows that in order for drug courts to work and grow in numbers, changes in policies and procedures that are shown to reduce crime need to be implemented everywhere. Weaknesses that can be found in this summary are that all active drug courts in the US did not respond, which could lead to a very different outcome involving the effectiveness of drug courts as a

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210 Words | 1 Pages

“Mandatory minimum sentencing, a policy that requires a judge to impose a fixed minimal term in prison for individuals convicted of certain crimes, regardless of the individual’s role in the crime or other mitigating circumstances” (Levinthal, 20112, pg. 130). A minimum sentenced required by law are typically 5 or 10 years in prison that must be served when a person is convicted of certain federal and state crimes. The mandatory minimum sentences for drug crimes are based on the type of drugs, the weight of drugs or quantities and the number of prior convictions of the offender. Different drugs have different set quantities that lead to mandatory sentencing. The criticism against this type of sentencing is because it takes away from the punishment

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1509 Words | 7 Pages

With the economy in the turmoil that it is in America cannot continue to support these sentencing guidelines. The Mandatory Article Sentencing declares that the laws are becoming a huge drain on the Justice Bureau’s budget, and in 2012 the United States had far beyond more people incarcerated than any other country. Most of these prisoners are low-level drug offenders sentenced under mandatory sentencing guidelines with a cost draining on American taxpayers $6.8 billion a year, as of 2012. These costs do not seem to have a ceiling and continue eating up about twenty-five percent of the federal justice system’s yearly budget.

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343 Words | 2 Pages

An 18 year old first time offender caught with less than two ounces of cocaine received a 10 year sentence. A 46 year old father of three who sold some of his painkillers to someone he thought was his friend, received a 25 year sentence. In 2006 37.5% of all state and federal prisoners were black. One in 33 african american men were in jail, compared to one in 205 white men and one in 79 hispanic men.

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1554 Words | 7 Pages

(http://www.sentencingproject.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/Drug-Courts-A-Review-of-the-Evidence.pdf) Since 1989 the number of Drug Courts have risen significantly due to the realization of the need for treatment with offenders that have a history of drug abuse. There is a total of 3,133 drug courts in the United States today with 1,561 of them being solely adult drug courts. (http://www.ndcrc.org/content/how-many-drug-courts-are-there). The drug court movement reflects the desire to shift the emphasis from attempting to combat drug crimes by reducing the supply of drugs into addressing the demand for drugs through the treatment of addiction.

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425 Words | 2 Pages

“Mandatory minimum prison sentences alter the criminal justice framework. They drain the control of the judiciary over punishing offenders and bestow quasi-judicial powers on police and prosecutors.” (Mirza, 2001, p.493) This will likely occur because it removes any discretion in regards to sentencing and eliminates the consideration of an individual’s circumstance or motive. This also does not take into consideration what happened before the crime.

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1798 Words | 8 Pages

As outlined by the Connecticut General Assembly in a 2005 study, proponents of the law believe mandatory minimum sentencing are first, effective in deterring severe offenses such as weapon and drug crimes. Second, protect against bias during sentencing. Third, they increase prison sentences for convicted offenders, thereby removing these individuals from the environments in which they would commit more crimes. Lastly, proponents trust the penalties will persuade lower-level offenders to testify against high-level offenders to negotiate their sentence (CGA,

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1728 Words | 7 Pages

The current system that incarcerates people over and over is unsustainable and does not lower the crime rate nor encourage prisoner reformation. When non-violent, first time offenders are incarcerated alongside violent repeat offenders, their chance of recidivating can be drastically altered by their experience in prison. Alternative sentencing for non-violent drug offenders could alleviate this problem, but many current laws hinder many possible solutions. Recently lawmakers have made attempts to lower the recidivism rates in America, for example the Second Chance Act helps aid prisoners returning into society after incarceration. The act allows states to appropriate money to communities to help provide services such as education, drug treatment programs, mental health programs, job corps services, and others to aid in offenders returning to society after incarceration (Conyers, 2013).

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1120 Words | 5 Pages

This creates problems because it adds to the eminence amount of tax dollars spent every year. In the article “The high price of incarceration in America” by Aimee shows that the average American taxpayer spends about $260 a year that is almost 80 billion dollars a year for incarceration (1). There have been many voters who have been trying to reduce the amount of mass incarcerations that have been going on since the 1980’s. The majority of prisoners who were released between 2014-2015 returned to crime but the rate that they were committing the crime and returning was dropped at an astonishing degree. In the article “Prosecutors Fight to Plan to Lower Drug Sentencing “ by Sari, Horwitz (1) shows how government officials are trying to cut back on the amount of long term sentencing for first time offenders.

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1000 Words | 4 Pages

Like it is mentioned in the movie 13th “The so called war on drugs was a war on communities of color”. So, now black people are being arrested much more than White people even though the drug use is close to the same as Angela F. Chan points out in her article for the Huffington Post. “Even though Black people use drugs at the same rate as White people, they are incarcerated for drug crimes at 20 to 50 times the rate of White people in some states”. A law that was passed during the war on drugs was mandatory sentencing.

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497 Words | 2 Pages

Fewer than one in four drug offenders in federal prison have a serious history qtd (Lopez). Urban Institute Figure 2 above shows a pie graph with more than half of violence among people imprisoned for drug offense has no history at 56% while minorities and serious both have 22%. Not only does prison overcrowding affect the inmates in prison, but the officers too. A psychological consequence with “overcrowding has been known to cause far more stressful situations and has prompted prison officials to react inappropriately on occasion due to being forced to accommodate ill-advised numbers of prisoners.” (Portland State University).

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874 Words | 4 Pages

isn’t the only thing people believe needs to change; the reasons for arrests have been criticized by many. America incarcerates more citizens for drug related crimes than any other place in the world. Of the roughly 200,000 in federal prison, 52% are being held for drug crimes and only 8% are for violent crimes, such as: murder, assault, and robbery (Waldman, 2013). Many believe that the “War on Drugs” must become less aggressive because of its large contribution to the prison population. The distribution of prisoners by race has also raised concern among Americans.

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