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Essay On Mandatory Minimum Sentencing

493 Words2 Pages

Incarcerating a high percentage rate of individuals for drinking and drug convictions is counterproductive to the overcrowding judicial system. In other words, the system is failing, creating an overpopulation problem in the prisons. Immediately, sending someone to jail or prison for an alcohol or drug problem is not providing the necessary help. Instead, the mandatory minimum sentencing guidelines are creating a repeat offender who will continue to clog up the system.

Mandatory Minimum Sentencing

Starting from good intentions, the mandatory minimum sentencing sets specific guidelines in assigning terms for the specific types of convictions relating to drugs and alcohol. In theory, the criminal justice policies provide a good course of action …show more content…

A couple of drinks on the way home after a long hard day begin as a way to relax. Being a law abiding citizen, the individual has a good job, family, friends, a college degree and a solid plan for a financially secure future.

The casual drinking begins as a way to reduce stress and anxieties from the pressures daily living. Slowly the drinking trickles into weekends with old college friends, reliving past glory days. Unaware of the effects, the addiction of alcohol is slowly taking over the person’s life. Eventually, his actions get him into trouble with the law.

His story is not the first of good people falling into the trap of alcohol or drug addiction. Does follow the mandatory sentencing guidelines help these individuals with their addictions? The minimum mandatory sentencing guidelines do not provide the opportunity for plea bargaining or allow for the separation of the offense into different degrees of the crime. Age of the defendant, the first time being in trouble with the law, entering into rehabilitation or other surrounding circumstances cannot be part of the sentencing factors. The result is an increasing prison population creating higher costs without solving the underlying

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The purpose of the United States Sentencing Commission is to “establish sentencing policies and practices for the federal criminal justice system that will assure the ends of justice by promulgating detailed guidelines prescribing the appropriate sentences for offenders convicted of federal crimes.” (Mustard 289) When it comes to the sentencing process, data is collected about the individual’s offense and criminal records to determine the offense level and criminal history score. Once they find those two scores that then indicate a range of sentence lengths. With certain circumstances, the judge can depart from the guidelines and issue a sentence that either exceeds the maximum or falls short of the minimum required by the guidelines. Once the sentencing range is determined, courts must adhere to the following constraints: “In determination of the sentence to impose within the guideline range, or whether a departure from the guidelines is warranted, the court may consider, without

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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.

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