ipl-logo

Pros And Cons Of Mandatory Sentencing In The United States

997 Words4 Pages

Mandatory sentencing began in October 27 1986 Reagan signed a law Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1986. Frontline writes that the law allocated funds to new prisons, drug education, and treatment. But its main result was to create mandatory minimum sentences. The harsh sentences on crack cocaine use disproportionately affect African-Americans April 22, 2014.

Mandatory sentencing was meant for certain crimes commonly serious and violent offenses. Judges are bound by law for these sentences are produced through the legislature not the judicial system. They are instituted to expedite the sentencing process and limit the possibility of irregularity of outcomes due to judicial discretion. Mandatory sentences are typically given to people convicted of …show more content…

Mandatory sentencing laws often target moral vices like alcohol, sex, drugs, and to friendships and family via prohibition, and crimes that threaten a person's livelihood. The idea is that there are some crimes that are so serious there is no way to accept the offender back into the general population without first punishing them sufficiently. Some crimes are viewed as serious enough to require an indefinite removal from society by a life sentence, or sometimes capital punishment. It is viewed as a public service to separate these people from the general population, as it is assumed that the nature of the crime or the frequency of violation supersedes the subjective opinion of a judge. Remedying the irregularities in sentencing that arise from judicial discretion are supposed to make sentencing more fair and balanced. In Australia and the UK, sentencing has been heavily influenced by judicial idiosyncrasies. Individual judges have a significant effect on the outcome of the case, sometimes leading the public to believe that a sentence …show more content…

"While I do believe being tough on crime is a good thing in general, it's the role of the judge to determine it."
Mandatory minimum sentences often tie a judge's hands, robbing them of their right to tailor sentences to a specific situation.
I suppose tough-on-crime laws “worked" if success is only measured by the increase of prisoner populations. However, one of the unbelievable little details of this new tough-on-crime stance is how differently the federal government views crack cocaine and powder cocaine.
I am thankfully not an expert on cocaine or its use, but a cursory Google search tells me that crack cocaine is just powder cocaine mixed with baking soda. However, what's interesting is how these new laws targeted crack cocaine but not powder cocaine.
Well, crack cocaine was an inner-city drug, while powder cocaine was something for the Wall Street lifestyle. Basically, white people chose to use powder cocaine, and powder cocaine doesn't result in nearly the same kind of damaging prison sentences as crack does. Ironically, crack is more frequently used by poorer minority populations due to its

Show More
Related

  • The Pros And Cons Of Mandatory Minimum Laws

    1217 Words  | 5 Pages

    Mandatory minimum sentences are sentences mandated by law for

    Read More

  • Nancy Reagan's Incarceration For Nonviolent Drug Offenders

    96 Words  | 1 Pages

    Due to the unprecedented expansion of the war on drugs by the Reagan administration started a long period of skyrocketing rates of incarceration. The huge number of offenders incarcerated for nonviolent drug offenders increased from 50,000 to 1980 to over 400,000 by the year 1997. In 1981, Nancy Reagan began a highly publicized antidrug campaign called “Just Say No”, as public concerns arose due to the portrayals by the media about people addicted to a smoke-able form of cocaine dubbed as “crack”. This campaign set the stage for zero tolerance policies implemented in the late 1980’s.

    Read More

  • Black Crack Cocaine Research Paper

    108 Words  | 1 Pages

    Let’s look at the punishment related to crack cocaine use offenses and how they are that much more severe than the punishment for illicit use of prescription opioids. Through this research we will come to realize that the only real difference between the two is the skin color of the people using them. With a rapid increase of deaths related to the misuse of pain relief prescription medications there is a frenzy in the “white community”. However, this same type of sympathy was unheard of during the black crack cocaine epidemic of the 1990s. Where the most aggressive drug sentencing laws to date were instituted, impacting minorities

    Read More

  • The War On Crimes Directed By Ava Duvernay

    893 Words  | 4 Pages

    The combination of drugs and unemployment increased crime, as drugs and alcohol disproportionately affected the black population. Above all the government's approach to addressing the harmful effects of drugs on society has created an oppressive atmosphere for poor blacks and other minority groups. The war on drugs targeted drug users and drug contributors similarly, and the group that was primarily affected was the African American community. However, they treated crack and cocaine differently, as it turns out; there is no significant chemical difference between them. The only distinction was in federal sentencing laws for possessing each form of the same drug, which had more to do with incorrect information and political pressure than public safety and health.

    Read More

  • How Did Nixon Use Cocaine In The 1980s

    1132 Words  | 5 Pages

    Regan’s tactic for the War on Drugs was directed towards the two most popular drugs of the 1980s, cocaine and crack. Crack is cocaine combined with chemicals to create a smokable and more producible drug. Criminalizing crack and cocaine lead to the incarceration of one in every three Black men while imposing minimum sentences, creating longer sentences, and reclassifying various drugs from misdemeanor to felony crimes. Crack use become enough of a serious concern to the public that in 1986 one-third of calls to a drug hotline were about the drug.

    Read More

  • What Is Crack Cocaine And How Did It Become So Prevalent In The 1980s

    1029 Words  | 5 Pages

    1. What is the history of crack cocaine and how did it become so prevalent in the 1980s? Crack cocaine is a free base form of cocaine that gained popular attention in the 1980s because it was much cheaper than cocaine, which was considered a drug for rich people. Because crack was cheaper, it was easier to obtain and spread rapidly in inner city and urban communities.

    Read More

  • Pros And Cons Of Mandatory Minimums

    1378 Words  | 6 Pages

    Mandatory minimums have long been a controversial topic in regard to the United States criminal justice system. Many people who are little to no threat to the public have received long and harsh sentences because of the mandatory minimums. The purpose of these laws was to help prevent future crime, deter people from drug use, and give violent offenders longer sentences. These legislative changes have caused the lengthening of sentences, truth in sentencing laws, and three-strike laws. Mandatory minimums require convicts to serve a minimum amount of time for certain crimes or because of their recidivism.

    Read More

  • Essay On Mandatory Minimum Sentencing

    1798 Words  | 8 Pages

    Introduction Crime, its punishment, and the legislation that decides the way in which they interact has long been a public policy concern that reaches everyone within a given society. It is the function of the judicial system to distribute punishment equitably and following the law. The four traditional goals of punishment, as defined by Connecticut General Assembly (2001), are: “deterrence, incapacitation, retribution, and rehabilitation.” However, how legislature achieves and balances these goals has changed due to the implementation of responses to changing societal influences. Mandatory minimum sentences exemplify this shift.

    Read More

  • Discretion In Criminal Justice

    802 Words  | 4 Pages

    Although this is arguably a little extreme, the case about making a point stands. Through this message, society now has the potential to grasp how certain matters are treated by the law. One of the issues with mandatory sentencing is that there is no flexibility for any future cases. Mr Cowdery, a retired DPP officer said, "judges needed discretion in sentencing to ensure the punishment fitted with the circumstances of the crime and the criminal themselves". Mandatory sentencing poses a large threat to society, due to the limitation on a judge 's ability to sentence in accordance with the severity of the offence, an individual may receive a punishment much harsher than they

    Read More

  • The Pros And Cons Of Sentencing

    840 Words  | 4 Pages

    Sentencing Sentencing occurs after a defendant has been convicted of a crime. During the sentencing process, the court issues a punishment that involves a fine, imprisonment, capital punishment, or some other penalty. In some states, juries may be entitled to determine a sentence. However, sentencing in most states and federal courts are issued by a judge. To fully understand the sentencing phase of criminal court proceedings, it is important to examine how sentencing affects the state and federal prison systems, learn the meanings of determinate and indeterminate sentencing, and understand the impact Proposition 57 has had on sentencing in California.

    Read More

  • Mandatory Sentencing Laws Essay

    1509 Words  | 7 Pages

    With the economy in the turmoil that it is in America cannot continue to support these sentencing guidelines. The Mandatory Article Sentencing declares that the laws are becoming a huge drain on the Justice Bureau’s budget, and in 2012 the United States had far beyond more people incarcerated than any other country. Most of these prisoners are low-level drug offenders sentenced under mandatory sentencing guidelines with a cost draining on American taxpayers $6.8 billion a year, as of 2012. These costs do not seem to have a ceiling and continue eating up about twenty-five percent of the federal justice system’s yearly budget.

    Read More

  • Essay On Mandatory Minimums

    442 Words  | 2 Pages

    Laws, Policies, Court Cases The main reason of the use of mandatory minimums and a root problem of it is the legal actions of the War on Drugs proposed by Richard Nixon during the 1970s. This in turn led to a drastic increase in prison population and did little to help the people addicted to the drugs. Attempts to mitigate the strength of punishments being handed out such as the commission of decriminalizing marijuana bills of 1973 and 1977, as well as the Sentencing Reform and Corrections Act of 2015 have been turned down. A court case that involves challenging the mandatory minimums is the court case of Alleyne v. United States, where in a 5 to 4 decision the court decided that facts that trigger a mandatory minimum sentence must be included and proven to a jury by proof beyond a reasonable doubt. This goes against the Harris V. U.S This gives protection to the

    Read More

  • Pros And Cons Of Mandatory Sentcing

    339 Words  | 2 Pages

    Should mandatory sentencing options exist for most crimes? In my opinion, mandatory sentencing should be given to those who commit crimes like murder, rape, Robbing. Compare to small crimes like small possession of drugs to disturbing the public places. A crime like those should be given probation or sent to a program to help them learn about their mistake they made, in the sense that they can learn from it. So, to be honest I feel like only certain kind of crime should have mandatory sentencing and not be so harsh with the little crimes that people do.

    Read More

  • Critically Evaluate The Main Objectives Of The Sanctions Of Criminal Courts

    4944 Words  | 20 Pages

    Critically evaluate the main objectives of the sanctions of criminal courts and then appraise their effectiveness with particular reference to prison sentences and consider whether alternative forms of punishment might be more appropriate. Introduction The most basic tenets of organized societies are sanctions, which are imposed on individuals who go against the norms and values that have been put in place by their society. Throughout human history, there have developed many forms of sanctions with a significant number of societies seeking means to ensure that there are deterrents to those who have either committed crimes or have the potential of doing so. Among the most common types of punishments that were a basic part of the system of sanctions

    Read More

  • Essay On Harsh Punishment

    1048 Words  | 5 Pages

    There is a worldwide trend in the use of penal imprisonment for serious offenses as capital punishment has been renounced by an increasing number of countries. Harsh punishments include capital punishment, life imprisonment and long-term incarceration. These forms of punishments are usually used against serious crimes that are seen as unethical, such as murder, assault and robbery. Many people believe that harsher punishments are more effective as they deter would-be criminals and ensure justice is served. Opposition towards harsh punishments have argued that harsher punishments does not necessarily increase effectiveness because they do not have a deterrent effect, do not decrease recidivism rates and do not provide rehabilitation.

    Read More

More about Pros And Cons Of Mandatory Sentencing In The United States

Open Document