Mandatory Minimums:
The Importance of Discretion in Sentencing
In 2013, Florida local John Horner’s friend asked to buy some of the former’s medication, prescribed to treat an eye injury in 2000. Horner agreed, later discovering his friend was a police informant and himself thrown behind bars. He was sentenced to 25 years in prison. (Flatow, 2013) It didn’t matter that his case was a textbook example of police entrapment; that he had no previous criminal record; that he was a steadily employed father of three; or that he was genuinely trying to help a friend in need. The mandatory minimum sentence was the law of the land.
While mandatory minimums stemmed from good intentions in response to public fear of crime, these intentions failed to translate into good policy. (Cole et al., 2014) These statues are defined as pre-set sentences …show more content…
This is far from the truth. According to the American Civil Liberties Union, most violent crimes are “in the heat of the moment” and not-premeditated; no actor will concern himself or herself with the thought of a life sentence in such a passionate state. (American Civil Liberties Union) Furthermore, mandatory minimums feeds into mass incarceration and prison overcrowding by frequently targeting nonviolent drug offenders, many of which are predominantly black males. (American Civil Liberties Union, 2010; Zafft, 2016) Instead of mandatory sentencing, judges should be able to use their discretion to take into account all aspects of the offender’s life leading up to and motiving their offense. Mandatory sentencing operates on the logical fallacy that all offenders and crimes are the same, and therefore should be punished the same way. Again, every offender and offence are unique, and therefore deserve to be treated as
The Importance of Discretion in Sentencing
In 2013, Florida local John Horner’s friend asked to buy some of the former’s medication, prescribed to treat an eye injury in 2000. Horner agreed, later discovering his friend was a police informant and himself thrown behind bars. He was sentenced to 25 years in prison. (Flatow, 2013) It didn’t matter that his case was a textbook example of police entrapment; that he had no previous criminal record; that he was a steadily employed father of three; or that he was genuinely trying to help a friend in need. The mandatory minimum sentence was the law of the land.
While mandatory minimums stemmed from good intentions in response to public fear of crime, these intentions failed to translate into good policy. (Cole et al., 2014) These statues are defined as pre-set sentences …show more content…
This is far from the truth. According to the American Civil Liberties Union, most violent crimes are “in the heat of the moment” and not-premeditated; no actor will concern himself or herself with the thought of a life sentence in such a passionate state. (American Civil Liberties Union) Furthermore, mandatory minimums feeds into mass incarceration and prison overcrowding by frequently targeting nonviolent drug offenders, many of which are predominantly black males. (American Civil Liberties Union, 2010; Zafft, 2016) Instead of mandatory sentencing, judges should be able to use their discretion to take into account all aspects of the offender’s life leading up to and motiving their offense. Mandatory sentencing operates on the logical fallacy that all offenders and crimes are the same, and therefore should be punished the same way. Again, every offender and offence are unique, and therefore deserve to be treated as