Discuss mandatory minimum sentences, particularly for drug crimes.

Question

What will be an ideal response?

Answer 1

Answers may vary.In an attempt to reduce discretion, some states impose mandatory minimum sentences for certain offenses, including drug crimes. These policies require judges to sentence offenders to a minimum number of years in prison regardless of any extenuating circumstances. They, too, have been criticized as unjust.Review of more than 73,000 cases from 2010 revealed that 75% of offenders subjected to a mandatory minimum penalty were convicted of a drug trafficking offense (U.S. Sentencing Commission, 2011). The American Psychological Association (APA) has spoken out against mandatory minimum sentences: "They have done nothing to reduce crime or put big-time drug dealers out of business. What they have done … is to fill prisons with young, nonviolent, low-level drug offenders serving long sentences at enormous and growing cost to taxpayers." Consistent with these recommendations, in 2010, President Obama signed into law The Fair Sentencing Act that eliminated mandatory minimum sentences for simple possession of crack cocaine. This trend may be reversing, however. Beginning in 2017 Attorney General Jeff Sessions has prioritized longer sentences for drug offenders.Current federal sentencing policy is based on the Sentencing Reform Act of 1984, which abolished parole and established a Sentencing Commission to develop mandatory sentencing guidelines. An overriding goal of the Sentencing Commission was to ensure uniformity of sentences. Federal judges were required to sentence offenders within a narrow range prescribed by a complicated analysis of the severity and circumstances of the crime, among other factors. But this scheme also proved to be controversial. In 2005, the U.S. Supreme Court decided that the mandatory nature of the guidelines was unconstitutional (United States v. Booker, 2005). Federal sentencing guidelines are now advisory rather than mandatory, meaning that they are among the factors that judges consider. In fact, judges still tend to follow the guidelines, although they are now able to consider more evidence than the guidelines would have permitted. When federal judges do diverge from the sentencing guidelines, though, their sentences are far more likely to be below the guidelines than above them. Meanwhile, the Sentencing Commission is considering alternatives to incarceration for offenders who are amenable to diversion and treatment.