There are many pressing social issues in the United States which take a precedent position in people 's lives such as unemployment, education, and even healthcare. Among these, drug use in America plays an enormous role in people 's lives, due to how recurrent they are in day to day life. In an effort to reduce the mass amount of drugs, mandatory minimum sentencing laws were implemented into our country. Mandatory minimums are laws with set minimum sentences for certain crimes that judges cannot lower, even for extenuating circumstances. The most common of these laws deal with drug offenses and set mandatory minimum sentences for possession of a drug over a certain amount. In 1971, President Nixon declared a “war on drugs”, resulting in mandatory
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The main thing it was successful in doing, is putting people who committed nonviolent crimes, mostly involving drugs, federal sentences spanning for decades. These sentences do no good in solving the problem or rehabilitating the offender, but only punishing them and costing the country money for prison time. The mandatory minimum sentencing laws have cost our country billions of dollars and increased prison populations to greater than that of any country on the planet. While pushing the carrying capacity of our nation 's prison to the point of overcrowding.
Mandatory minimums are an issue, which has been widely discussed by state governments and has been slightly revised in states. It is clear that to many people these mandatory minimum sentencing laws are just irrational and illogical. These sentences have done more harm than good. The laws established in the 1970s regarding drug …show more content…
Our country has an extremely large population hovering around the 320 million range. With this momentous population, it presents an enormous amount of diversity and opinion throughout the country. Now, when you go across the country there is hundreds of federal court judges that are going to have different opinions on issues depending on each offense. With Mandatory Minimums, Congress specifies the minimum penalty for a specific crime or category of offenses and it’s entirely uniform with the proper functioning of the legislature in the criminal justice processes according to what the law states(Bernick). Prior to the implementation of Mandatory Minimums judges had complete and utter discretion to determine what they deemed to be a reasonable sentence, while also granting parole the offender 's parole officer the authority to decide precisely whether to and when to release an inmate possibly before the completion of his/her sentence(Bernick). With universal sentencing laws it also insures and guarantees that sentences are consistent throughout the country with standard sentences for those convicted of the same crime. This prevents criminals around the country from getting off easy, so to speak. Also with a certain sentence for specific crimes in play it reduces crime and has a deterring effect on people considering breaking the law.
The main thing it was successful in doing, is putting people who committed nonviolent crimes, mostly involving drugs, federal sentences spanning for decades. These sentences do no good in solving the problem or rehabilitating the offender, but only punishing them and costing the country money for prison time. The mandatory minimum sentencing laws have cost our country billions of dollars and increased prison populations to greater than that of any country on the planet. While pushing the carrying capacity of our nation 's prison to the point of overcrowding.
Mandatory minimums are an issue, which has been widely discussed by state governments and has been slightly revised in states. It is clear that to many people these mandatory minimum sentencing laws are just irrational and illogical. These sentences have done more harm than good. The laws established in the 1970s regarding drug …show more content…
Our country has an extremely large population hovering around the 320 million range. With this momentous population, it presents an enormous amount of diversity and opinion throughout the country. Now, when you go across the country there is hundreds of federal court judges that are going to have different opinions on issues depending on each offense. With Mandatory Minimums, Congress specifies the minimum penalty for a specific crime or category of offenses and it’s entirely uniform with the proper functioning of the legislature in the criminal justice processes according to what the law states(Bernick). Prior to the implementation of Mandatory Minimums judges had complete and utter discretion to determine what they deemed to be a reasonable sentence, while also granting parole the offender 's parole officer the authority to decide precisely whether to and when to release an inmate possibly before the completion of his/her sentence(Bernick). With universal sentencing laws it also insures and guarantees that sentences are consistent throughout the country with standard sentences for those convicted of the same crime. This prevents criminals around the country from getting off easy, so to speak. Also with a certain sentence for specific crimes in play it reduces crime and has a deterring effect on people considering breaking the law.