Drugs & Mandatory Minimum Sentencing's Faults

Great Debates
1

I came across www.hr95.org which opened my eyes to the
major problems in drug arrests and sentencing. So much
injustice.
Here’s a very sad result in many cases.
MMS Are Costly Socially
The less calculable costs of the Drug War are in human damage caused to those imprisoned for unduly long periods of time, and to their families. Women and children truly bear the brunt of the Drug War. Women are the “hidden body count” and children are the “unseen victims.” Children of prisoners lose one or both of their parents, forcing them to fend for themselves, to be taken in by relatives, or to live in foster homes. Brothers and sisters are often separated from each other in the breakup of their families.

Asset forfeitures seize family homes, cars, and savings, leaving many families homeless with no transportation and no money.

Too often, young children watch in terror as DEA agents break down the front door of their family home, throw their parents to the floor and aim guns at their heads, shouting curses at them. The children themselves are frequently kept at gun point for hours.

In 1978, the number of imprisoned parents was 21,000. By 1990, it had risen to 1,000,000 (one million).

Since mandatory minimums were enacted, the number of women inmates has tripled. The majority of these women are first-time, nonviolent, low-level offenders.

Over 80% of the female prisoners in the United States are mothers, and 70% of these are single parents.
These kinds of incarcerations may be sowing the seeds for a new generation of inmates. Studies show that, relative to the general population, inmates are more than twice as likely to have grown up in a single parent family, and that half the juveniles in state and local jails have an immediate family member who is a felon.

With so much talk in Congress about “Family Values,” one might expect to see some concern about the destruction of the family unit which is caused by the Drug War . not its mindless escalation.

MMS Are Costly Financially
The average cost of incarcerating a federal inmate is $23,000 per year. (FAMM, Coalition for Federal Sentencing Reform, March, 1997)
About 60% of federal inmates - 65,697 people! - are drug offenders. Half of these are first time, non-violent offenders. (Bureau of Prisons, testimony)
To feed, clothe, house and guard these 65,697 prisoners costs taxpayers $4.14 million per day, or $1.51 billion annually.
Each year, the portion of your tax dollars that goes to support federal prisoners grows faster than any other federal expenditure, including education, defense, the environment, transportation and social security.
The Federal Bureau of Prisons budget has grown 1,400% since the enactment of mandatory minimums in 1986. The budget jumped from $220 million in 1986 to $3.19 billion in 1997. (Bureau of Justice Statistics Sourcebook, National Drug Control Strategy, 1997)
It costs more to send a person to prison for four years than it does to send him to a private university for four years, including tuition, fees, room and board, books and supplies. (Bureau of Prisons)

2

It’s unclear to me what the premise of your debate is. If it’s merely that the use of drugs leads to very sad results, then I certainly agree.

Is that the point of your debate?

  • Rick
3

The entire Mandatory Minimum Sentencing
argument is full of injustices. I didn’t offer the
total MMS concept because it’s very
detailed. But if you look at www.hr95.org you’ll see
how unfair it is and needs to be drastically changed
to make it more fair and just.
The drug war as it stands is wasteful and a losing
proposition.

4

I couldn’t agree more. I can’t imagine what kind of idiot pandering politician would write such trash legislature. Everything has to be an overeaction to whatever most recently happened. Why bother even having a judge if your going to take away his/her ability to judge? Why write something in stone that can just as easily be reviewed on a case by case basis? It’s not like people who should be doing the time haven’t been doing it for the most part. Anyone who “gets away with it” never had to go to a sentencing hearing in the first place.

5

I find it odd that the government is supposedly against drugs because it ruins peoples lives, then it goes and puts drug users in prison for long periods of time, which destroys their lives even more. Often the cure is worse than the disease.

6

I doubt it’s the point. In this case, it isn’t the use of drugs which lead to very sad result, but the laws against it. The exact same very sad result would be achieved by sentencing all people who ate chocolate.

You can’t just mix the sad results of drug use per se and the sad results of indiscriminately sentencing drug users.

7

I am wondering what is so special about drug offenses that they, alone of all crimes , shouldn’t have a mandatory minimum sentence.In my state, at least ,there is a range of permitted sentences for each crime, giving each a mandatory minimum sentence. And with a sentencing range (which I believe the feds also have) there is still the ability to judge on a case by case basis- it simply sets a minimum and a maximum.The judge decides where in that range a particular person is sentenced. No one ever says that the fact that a murder conviction has a minimum sentence takes away the ability to judge on a case by case basis. I suspect that those against mandatory minimum sentences for drug offenses are in fact in favor of making drugs legal (or at least non-criminal), a very different issue.

8

The intended goal of mandatory minimum sentences was to punish those who were most responsible for the drug trade, the “kingpins”. The only way to avoid a mandatory minimum is to provide substantial assistance to the prosecutor in exchange for a reduction in sentence. Unlike the organizer, the minor player seldom has valuable information to trade for a lower sentence.

This is one of the reasons why Chief Justice William Rehnquist described MMS as a good example of the “law of unintended consequences”.

According to findings by the U.S. Sentencing Commission, low level participants receive MMS more often than top-level importers.

Call your elected federal officials and demand that Mandatory Minimum Sentences be ended.

9

FACT 1

The United States has a larger percentage of its population in prison than any country on Earth. Over 1.7 million human beings languish behind bars. Well over sixty percent of federal prisoners, and a significant fraction of state and local prisoners, are non-violent drug offenders, mostly first time offenders.

FACT 2

The average sentence for a first time, non-violent drug offender is longer than the average sentence for rape, child molestation, bank robbery or manslaughter. As our prisons rapidly fill to bursting, rapists and murderers are being given early release to make room for “no parole” drug offenders. While law enforcement continues to go after relatively easy drug violation arrests, every major city in this country has a record number of unsolved homicides.

CON 3

It’s been empirically shown that education and treatment is seven times more cost effective than arrest and incarceration for substance addiction, yet we continue to spend more tax dollars on prisons than treatment. In this ‘Land of Liberty’, we spend more money on prisons than on schools.

CON 4

The drug “kingpins” and professional criminals continually plea-bargain their way to freedom, or leave the country with all their wealth, while the low level offenders and innocent patsies, with no information to trade for leniency, and no resources for an adequate defense, are sentenced to insanely long terms. We are warring on the afflicted and the vulnerable.

CON 5

Don’t think for a minute that you and your family are immune, because “we don’t do drugs”. As the Criminal Justice juggernaut swells out of control, “innocent until proven guilty” has lost all meaning. You can be sucked into the prison-industrial complex on little more than a whim, and spend a lifetime trying to find relief. An evening spent with the wrong crowd; a moment of rebellion or bad judgment, and your sons and daughters will fall victim. It has become insanely easy to prove conspiracy based on mere association and bartered for hearsay. Drugs are everywhere, from the inner city ghettos to the gated estates of the privileged classes. One mistake, one moment of unfortunate coincidence, and your loved ones will be gone, locked up for ten years to life. One day soon, it will happen to you, or your family, or your friends; make no mistake. This madness must stop now.

CON 6

The mandatory minimum sentences were criticized by the U.S. Sentencing Commission as early as 1991. In this report the commission found that all defense lawyers, and nearly half of prosecutors queried had serious problems with mandatory minimum sentences. Most of the judges pronounced
them “manifestly unjust.” The 1991 sentencing report particularly criticized the transfer of power in courts from judges who are supposed to be impartial to prosecutors, who are not.

CON 7

With even national candidates admitting past drug use doesn’t it seem hypocritical to impose mandatory sentencing for drug use.

Until I read about this problem I had no idea it was so screwed
up and needs more of our attention. I’m contacting my
representatives and joing some organizations to do battle.

10

Please try to respond in your own words, hawkhawk. The entirety of that post was taken from this page on the site you linked to in your OP.

11

By that, I meant the post with the “MMS hurts lesser criminals” title.

12

Many people argue that mandatory sentences are generally bad. Judges and prosecutors need to be able to take individual circumstances into account. But more importantly, the sentences for drug offenses are far too high.

13

Who was the genius behind MMS in the first place? Were people getting away with short sentences?

14

Try a little harder, clairobscur. (1) Eating chocolate is not against the law. (2) It is the “very sad result” of using drugs that inspired the laws against drug use in the first place. (3) The laws against using certain drugs are no secret; they are well-known and routinely enforced. Those who choose to use proscribed drugs choose at the same time to violate the law. Lawbreakers are in turn routinely subjected to treatment that is “very sad.” Duh.

doreen, drug offenders are NOT the only ones subject to minimum sentencing laws. Anyone who commits a crime using a gun is subject to a three-year minimum sentence, without regard to the crime or to the judge’s disposition of the case. I’m sure there are other examples.

15

I think you are confusing guidelines with mandatory miniumus.

The problem re the mandatory minimum sentencing laws for drugs is that they result in people receiving long prison sentences for minor, non-violent offences. This alone is quite enough reason to change these laws.

But there’s more. Our prisons are overcrowded. Officials have no choice but to parole many prisoners before they’ve completed their sentences. There just isn’t room to keep everyone in for their full sentence. Result: repeat violent offenders get paroled after serving about 1/2 their sentences; people convicted of non-violent drug offences serve every minute of their sentences. Even if it’s a 1st offence. Even if their only “crime” was possession of marijuana, a subsance cirtainly no more harmful then (legal) alcohol.

16

I think it was posturing by politicians who wanted to be seen as being “tough on crime,” and/or who wanted to be seen to be “doing something” about something they believed the public was worried/upset about.

Now, the politicians are unwilling to change the laws. Voting in favor of reducing the sentence for a crime, any crime, can result in one’s oponents acusing one of being “weak on crime,” an alarming prospect to any politican.

Someone mentioned a law that requires a 3-year sentence (or a 3-year additional sentence?) for using a gun in a crime. If the drug mandatory minimums were as short as 3 years, there would be far less reason to make a fuss about them.

17

Then it seems to me that the problem is where the minimums are set, not with the concept of a minimum.

I think they differ in name only . According to the US Code, section 841, the penalty for manufacturing, distributing or possessing with intent to distribute varying amounts of different drugs is

The penalty for the same crime with a larger quantity is

[/quote]
such person shall be sentenced to a term of imprisonment which may not be less than 10 years or more than life and if death or serious bodily injury results from the use of such substance shall be not less than 20 years or more than life,
[/quote]

Seems like a range to me, between 5 and 40 years in the first case, and between 10 years to life in the second, with the ranges increased if death or serious bodily injury results from use of the substance.If there’s some other difference, please educate me.

You misunderstood me. There are indeed many other crimes ( I think most) with mandatory minimum sentences. But no one ever complains that a judge’s discretion is being taken away because there’s a minimum sentence for a murder conviction, or a rape conviction or a robbery conviction. Only drug convictions.

18

Yeah, that’s becasue I’d rather be living next door to a guy that hits a bong on the weekend or maybe even sells a little on the side than a rapist, murderer, child molester, bank robber, or hitman.

Wouldn’t you.

My thoughts here only, and I’m certainly no legal expert:

Guidelines are just that, suggestions which attept to make sentencing fair and even for similar crimes, but by no means restricting a judge from going above or below a certain term.

Minimums are just that, you can’t go below them.

One’s optional, one’s not.

You know, if law enforcement actually started to arrest and prosecute rich little white kids who actually use drugs more often than those who bear the vast majority of the punishment of drug laws such as low-income monorities, I wonder how long it would take to change the system.

19

And what that website doesn’t explictly say is that the chart only includes those serving Federal sentences and doesn’t at all mention that most drug offenders (or rapists,manslaughterers etc-except I think bank robbers) are not prosecuted in the Federal system. Add in the state and local sentences for drug offenders and state sentences for manslaughter, child molestation and rape and the averages will change drastically. Just for comparison, in May 2002 the Federal prison held 77,791 prisoners convicted on drug charges (total, not just first offenses). In 2001, NYS alone had 50,988 felony drug arrests and 94,601 misdemeanor arrests for a total of 143,589 drug arrests. Even if only half of those arrested for misdemeanor drug offenses in NY were convicted (and it was probably a much higher percentage),and none of the felonies were plea-bargained down to misdemeanors (and some of them certainly were) that’s 47,300 sentences of either no jail time or less than one year for crimes committed in 2001 in NYS alone.

20

No need to try harder. The issue here is the “sad results” of mandatory sentences for drug users. Not the “sad results” of drug use. People are arguing that these laws and their implementation are counter-productive, and even unjust or ludicrous. If you made chocolate illegal tomorrow and decided that that all chocolate-eaters should spend at least 10 years in jail, the situation would be exactly the same (these people would engage knowingly in an illegal activity). And people would be debatting whether it makes sense or not.
The debate isn’t “are drug users breaking the law”? or “are mandatory sentences lawful?”. We all know they do/they are. The issue is : should these laws be changed?