Summary: The Smarter Sentence Act

Decent Essays
Belonging to the development of the world, the number of offenders is increasing rapidly, and it leads to the short of slots in prison. As a result, “The Smarter Sentence Act” passed in 2015 reduces the mandatory minium sentence for those convicted of federal drug offenses in order to address the problems associated with mass incarceration and keeping nonviolent offenders out of prison. In my point of view, I totally disagree with this statement for two reasons. First, it is dangerous for innocent individuals in the society. For example, Markin is a drug offense. He is used to using drugs in the public places, such as: parks, outside office, buildings, etc. where have many children, olders, and naïve people. Let’s think what will

Related Documents

  • Improved Essays

    In the United States, we see minimum harsh punishments given to drug criminals because the court system, in order to save money and other resources, doesn’t want to hear the drug court cases. When drug cases appear in court, it is up to the judge to decide the sentencing for the criminal. Many judges are awarding these criminals with a minimum harsh sentencing right away, making everything easier for the courts by not even having the case go to court. According to the book, The New Jim Crow, written by Michelle Alexander, “‘The value of a mandatory minimum sentence lies not in its imposition, but in its value as a bargaining chip to be given away in return for the resource-saving plea from the defendant to a more leniently sanctioned charge’”…

    • 329 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    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…

    • 320 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    In the last few decades, the U.S. population of incarcerated citizens exploded from around 300,000 to more than 2 million, with drug convictions accounting for a majority of the increase. The War on Drugs functions more realistically as…

    • 997 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Notably, Cassell is not alone in the quest to reestablish how minimum mandatory sentencing is carried out and in some circumstances, avoided completely. Professor William G. Otis is a law professor at Georgetown University and former federal prosecutor who served as Special Counsel Member to President George H. W. Bush. In a similar tone to Cassell, Otis in his article "Should Mandatory Minimum Laws Be Repealed?" explores the concept of minimum mandatory sentencing from the perspective of the federal legislature’s lack of faith in the ability of state judges to uniformly get sentencing right when offenders were found guilty of carrying crime. As a direct result of such legislation and as explored above, thousands of non-violent, first time…

    • 767 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Decent Essays

    Over half of the prisoners in the federal system are incarcerated for nonviolent drug offenses because of mandatory minimum sentencing. (NeSmith, 2015). Not only do they have damaging repercussions mentally but they also negatively affect the families of those punished by minimum sentencing. Because judges were unsure and untrained on how to use their discretion there was little to no appellate review on sentencing.…

    • 249 Words
    • 1 Pages
    Decent Essays
  • Improved Essays

    McCoy (2010) demonstrates that drug courts was established to prevent drug-related crime, help individuals get off using drugs, and help addicts become normal United States citizens. Rempel, Green and Kralstein (2012) argues “[…] their potential to reduce incarceration lies in their impact on recidivism, leading to fewer future cases on which long periods of incarceration might otherwise have been imposed” (Rempel, Green and Kralstein, 2012, p.190). Rempel, Green and Kralstein (2012) demonstrated that the drug court intervention should not be considered for an alternative to incarceration, right away because this based on their findings, more research needs to be conducted to further provide evidence. Sullivan and Hamilton (2007) argues “[…] that although slight increases in substance use prevalence may not precipitate immediate changes in criminal behavior it may induce later increases in crime” (Sullivan and Hamilton, 2007, p.514). Sullivan and Hamilton (2007) demonstrates that there tends to be a gradual decline in criminal behavior leading to a decrease in substance…

    • 906 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    By keeping these offenders imprisoned and from continuing their illegal activities, it is seen as keeping the public safe from any further harm. Before mandated minimums, it was possible to receive a fair sentence from a judge who could assess the situation and decide based on their experience. With minimums, one can argue that it reduces sentencing disparity (Caulkins, J., Rydell, C., Schwabe, W., & Chiesa, J., 1997). Now offenders committing similar crimes will all receive the same sentence, no matter the circumstance. When an offender is faced with a lengthy sentence for a crime committed, it provides a tool for prosecutors to use to find others involved.…

    • 1206 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Though the bill itself has not been enacted, it has been explored and referred to the committee within the judiciary. Its main goals are to increase public safety, establish offender risk and needs assessments for a more effective and efficient system, and to implement a validated post-sentencing risk and needs assessment. As of January of this year, there have been multiple proposals for significant changes to the federal sentencing guidelines. These new proposals are intended to have an enormous impact on the thousands of inmates that currently reside within federal prison walls. One of the many changes from the recent proposals made include a new update on the two point federal sentence reduction for drug offenders, which have had retroactive effects.…

    • 1092 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Satire On Drugs

    • 724 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Drug laws play a vital role in American society because drug use is an unfortunate part of the culture. Regardless of one’s views on whether some currently illegal drugs should be treated differently than others, the fact is that at this point all non-prescription drugs are illegal, and the government is responsible for responding to public outcry on this issue whether it be the legalization of recreational drugs like marijuana or the perceived injustices handed down to non-violent drug offenders. The serious nature of our country’s drug epidemic makes the topic of drug laws one that must be addressed by all branches of the US Government; the President is calling for legalization of recreational marijuana, congress is passing groundbreaking…

    • 724 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    mandatory minimum sentencing causes someone who may use marijuana for personal purposes to be imprisoned for the same amount of time as someone who sells marijuana on a large scale or other violent crimes. The surprising fact that mandatory minimums are mostly applied in the federal court for drug cases shows the percentage of persons that are likely to be sent to prison for a long period of time thus increasing the prison population. Subsequently reducing, removing mandatory minimum or decriminalizing marijuana reduces the amount of people being issued a sentence of blind justice by the judge who has no discretion will have a domino effect upon the amount of people in prison for non-violent drug offenses such as marijuana possession. Among people who receive mandatory minimum sentences in 2011, 38 % were Latinos and 31 % were black, this shows a correlation between racial disparities and mandatory…

    • 1125 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The negative will now prove the treating of abuse of illigal drugs should be a matter of criminal justice because first of all the absense of punishment will lead to an idea of acceptance among drug users. Secondly, locking up drug abusers is an effective way to keep them from harming civilians. Thirdly, the only way a drug abuser can quit is only if they want help and want change themselves. This issue adresses not only the U.S but also the rest of the world…

    • 1305 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    Causes Of Prison Overcrowding

    • 1400 Words
    • 6 Pages
    • 4 Works Cited

    The judicial system was buckling down on different drug offenses such as crack-cocaine, marijuana and opium. In 1985 marijuana was marked as the nation’s “number one problem” when it came to drug abuse. More people started using excessive amounts of marijuana since there was a decriminalization law. Eventually, it reached a high of sixty-four percent; programs and treatments were brought upon such as D.A.R.E (Drug Abuse Resistance Education) and G.R.E.A.T (Gang Resistance Education and Training). These programs were not just for adults, these were mainly targeted towards the youth so they will be pushed in the right direction.…

    • 1400 Words
    • 6 Pages
    • 4 Works Cited
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The type of offender that would be affected by my change in criminal justice policy would be nonviolent drug offenders. It's important to note that the nonviolent drug offenders would only be drug users, not dealers. The proposed policy decriminalizes drug use and instead would impose fines and a probationary period for violators. By decriminalizing drug use, real change may occur. Instead of throwing addicts in jail, there will be a greater emphasis on rehabilitation.…

    • 568 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    Policies enacted in this movement include mandatory minimum sentencing laws like three strikes and truth-in-sentencing. Three strikes laws take away judicial discretion, giving more sentencing power to the prosecutor because they decide what to charge the defendant with. Mandatory minimums often require life sentences for many offenders who are nonviolent and non-serious. These include many drug offenders, where a life sentence will take away any chance they have of getting better. Our current system doesn’t offer any help with addiction; the real reason why many are…

    • 1156 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Great Essays

    Once balance is restored, the chances of the prisoner re-offending are diminished (Inayatullah, 2011). In contrast, there is the punishment model. Inayatullah (2011) states that the argument is that all the rights are given to the offender and the victim has none. Therefore in this approach, the best way to reduce present day and future crimes is to keep serious offenders in jail. Evidence shows that twenty-five percent of criminal activity can be reduced by lengthy prison sentences.…

    • 1674 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Great Essays