Mandatory sentencing

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    Through the year’s mandatory minimum sentences seemed like the way to go, nonviolent drug offenders made to serve a minimum term for the crimes they committed. Where the phrase “if you do the crime, you do the time” held a lot of truth and the “war on drugs” was just the beginning. But what if it is not so true anymore? What if I told you we have lost the war on drugs? And, what if mandatory minimums were responsible for some of the problems with in our criminal justice system? What was once put…

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    Mandatory minimum sentences have not eliminated sentencing disparities because they have not eliminated sentencing discretion; they have merely shifted that discretion from judges to prosecutors.[25] Judges may have to impose whatever punishment the law requires, but prosecutors are under no comparable obligation to charge a defendant with violating a law carrying a mandatory minimum penalty.[26] As a practical matter, prosecutors have unreviewable discretion over what charges to bring,…

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    of authority has numerous problems that it faces and provides equal punishments to those who break the law. When it comes to mandatory sentencing, many people take sides on what is considered fair and unfair. With the number of criminals rising each and every year, the justice system requires a well-balanced process for each individual case. With that being said, mandatory sentences are restrictions placed on judges when it comes to what kinds of punishment they can give to people accused of…

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    threat to yourself or others. A crime is a crime, but all crimes vary, so why create a law that makes any person caught violating a certain law serve a mandatory sentence. The mandatory minimum sentencing states that anyone caught with any amount, small or large, of a controlled substance in including cocaine, heroin or cannabis must serve a mandatory of 2 years with a maximum of 5 if it is their first offence. No matter how big or small, well there is a very big difference between a teenage kid…

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    controversial Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1986 introduced mandatory minimum sentencing for drug possession and distribution (Alexander, 2010). Controversy did not rise from the idea of mandatory minimum sentencing, but rather the obvious racial bias which arose from the disparities between sentencing for cocaine and crack. This legislation created a five-year mandatory minimum for possession of five grams of crack cocaine, yet to receive that same five-year mandatory sentence, the law required five…

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    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…

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    Prison overcrowding has become a major problem in the United States. As per, Issues and Controversies, “The United States has only 5 percent of the world’s population, but holds 25 percent of the world’s prisoners.” Housing the growing prison population is putting a strain on the federal government’s budget, costing roughly $80 billion a year. Crime rates are down, but prison populations are a growing concern. In light of these facts, we need to explore ways of reducing crime that does not…

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    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…

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    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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    John Doe Essay

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    abuse act, which mandated minimum sentencing laws, thus creating the quake that would soon start an avalanche within the United States justice system (H.R. 5484 — 99th Congress: Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1986). The power to decide on a case-by-case basis was taken away from judges and replaced with the one-size fits all sentencing that began to take its firm grasp on the justice system. At the time, congress and the populace in the 1986 wanted to have uniform sentencing length in order to lower…

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