Summarize the five main empirical findings on the effectiveness of mandatory minimum sentences

Question

What will be an ideal response?

Answer 1

The U.S. Sentencing Commission has evaluated the effectiveness of mandatory
minimum sentences. Commission studies provide little empirical support for the
success of mandatory sentencing laws. Instead, the Commission's findings
demonstrate five major conclusions.
(1) Only a few of the mandatory minimum sentencing provisions are ever used, and
nearly all of those are related to drug or weapon offenses.
(2) Less than half of defendants whose characteristics and behaviors qualify them for
mandatory minimum sentences actually receive them.
(3) Mandatory minimum sentences actually introduce disparities in sentences.
(4) Other disparities in sentences resulted from reductions for providing "substantial
assistance to prosecutors.". This tended to favor the very people the law was meant to
reach, that is, those higher up in the chain of drug dealing and other crimes.
(5) Mandatory minimum sentences don't eliminate discretion, they just shift it from
judges to prosecutors. Prosecutors end up using the discretion in a number of ways,
including manipulating the "substantial assistance exception" and in the decision
whether to charge defendants with the crimes carrying minimum mandatory sentences
to begin with.