Mandatory minimum sentences for drugs and other crimes should be eliminated. First and foremost the mandatory minimum punishment that is given does not fit the crime. Second of all, Judges can not sentence below a mandatory minimum unless the defendant provides “substantial assistance.” The final reason that they should be eliminated is because they have a more of an impact on minorities. These are only a few of the reasons why mandatory minimum drug sentences should be taken away. The policy has become a debated topic, with its implications reaching beyond those that affect just the drug dealers and users.
The use of mandatory jail sentences is failing and will fail if continued because it creates an unfair system of punishment, overcrowds our prisons, fails to succeed where treatment has and levies incredible costs that have to be absorbed by taxpayers (Michael, 1998). The use of mandatory jail sentences for drug convictions creates a readily seen loophole within the justice system. Normally the judge is given the final say in sentencing but this changes because of the mandatory jail sentences. Suddenly the power of sentencing is not in the judge’s hands as it should be but rather in the hands of the prosecutor. This is because the judge is required to meet out certain sentences for these charges and it is the prosecutors who determine whether to bring charges that carry a mandatory minimum sentence.
We have a failed social policy that had ended up with undue incarceration and inadequate drug treatment, and we are simply going to have to readdress this issue. The amount of evidence showing that mandatory minimums don’t work is too great to ignore. It creates an unfair system of punishment, overcrowds our prisons, fails to succeed where treatment has and levies incredible costs that have.....
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