Harsh minimum sentencing practices around drug offences exist because of the Reagan administration’s rhetoric that blamed drugs as the primary cause of violent crime in the US during the 1980s. Prior to Reagan’s “War on Drugs” era, drug crime in the US was relatively minor, however, beginning in 1980, the number of prisoners in jail for drug related offences skyrocketed. While there were just 41,100 of these prisoners in 1980, by 2010 that number had tripled, an increase of 1,100%. One of the biggest reasons for this seemingly outrageous increase is mandatory minimums, a system devised to enact harsher sentences for first time offenders, with the goal of making them reluctant to commit the same crime again. In her book, The New Jim Crow, professor
