Reforming the Mandatory Minimum Sentencing Policy - Term Paper Example

Topic: Mandatory minimum sentences The idea of Mandatory minimum sentences was born out of good intentions regardless of the fact that good intentions do not always produce good policies. Acknowledging this reality, there are policy makers who are in support of making changes to the federal minimum sentencing laws. Even before these reforms can proceed, it is important to consider, regarding each crime, is justice served in the appropriate manner through allowing lawmakers to assign specific penalties to particular crimes or are the lawmakers supposed to leave the discretion to the judges to tailor the judgments. The spread of mandatory minimum penalties for offences together with the great increase in the numbers of people in prison has led to those dealing with criminal justice to re-evaluate this age-old issue. The number of people in US prisons has increased by approximately eight hundred percent since the eighties and this has forced the federal prisons to operate at almost forty percent above their normal capacity (Reamer, 2003). Despite the fact that the US has only 5% of the inhabitants of the world, its prisons hold almost twenty five percent of all the prisoners in the world. There are more than half a million federal prisoners in United States prisons and almost half of all these prisoners have been locked up for crimes that are linked to drugs and abuse of various substance. Furthermore, about nine million more people go through the country’s jails every year while around forty percent of the forty percent of people previous held as federal prisoners and almost sixty percent of those formerly held as state prisoners are arrested again of have their supervision canceled only three years after they leave jail. Reforming the mandatory minimum sentencing policy The mandatory minimum sentencing laws oblige compulsory prison sentences of specific lengths for the individuals who are found guilty of particular federal and state offences. These rigid legislations may appear as quick fix solutions for crime but they destabilize justice through inhibiting judges from giving the punishments to individuals based on the circumstances of their crimes. These laws have resulted in the number of prisoners increasing exponentially and thus leading to overcrowded prisons, unreasonable costs to the taxpayers as well as diversion of funds from other areas such as law enforcement (Cole & Smith, 2013). Most of the sentences under these laws are applicable for crimes associated with drugs; however, they also target other crimes such as specific gun, pornography and economic crimes. Sentencing disparities The mandatory minimum sentences have not been effective in the elimination of disparities, as they have not eradicated sentencing discretion. They have simply shifted that discretion from the judges presiding over cases to the prosecutors. Regardless of the fact that judges have to impose the punishments that are prescribed by the law, there prosecutors are not bound by a similar requirement to charge an offender with the violation of a law that carries a mandatory minimum punishment. In practicality, the prosecutors possess a discretion that cannot be reviewed in terms of the charges their present, including whether to if they should charge someone violating the law with a mandatory minimum sentence or whether to take part in a plea bargain that included trading away a charge that entails applications of these laws (Sharp, 2013). Furthermore, even if these kind of charges are brought against a defendant, the prosecutor still has discretion that cannot be reviewed on whether to compel the district court to reduce the sentence given to the defendant based on his significance support to the government. Moreover, uncontrolled prosecutorial discretion is a bigger evil than unconstrained judicial discretion as the prosecutors have no training in giving sentences to offenders and do not practice discretion in a manner that is transparent. Opponents have claimed that prosecutors, who may benefit professionally if they are successful in convicting individuals under the mandatory minimums, do not have enough motivations to use their discretion in a responsible manner. There is no instance in the criminal justice systems where authority is vested in a single party in a dispute regarding making decisions on what should be the appropriate actions and remedies to take. Decisions are supposed to be made by the jury, which is supposed to make the findings that are needed for a punishment to be given, or a judge, who is supposed to enter the judgment of the verdict that allows the correctional system to give a punishment to the defendant who has been convicted. Prison overcrowding and crime reduction According to Council of Europe (2010), the mandatory minimum sentences also do not decrease the rates of crime in the society and the magnitude of the evidence evidently demonstrates that enacting mandatory penalties has not obvious marginal restriction effects or short-term impacts that quickly disappear. It is also not obvious that the mandatory minimum sentences decrease the offences through incapacitation, as in most of the drug operations, if a low-level lawbreaker is incapacitated, others who will take his position through a replacement effect. In the cases associated with drugs, these sentences are in most instances insensitive to the elements that could make incapacitating an offender more effective, like previous criminal history. From a theoretical perspective, mandatory minimum sentences allow the government to go up the chain of the big drug operations the employing the help of the sentenced low-level criminals to catch the higher-ranking criminals (Sharp, 2013). The government can consequently reward the assistance of the criminal through compelling the district court to decrease the amount of punishment the offender is given to a level that is below the term that is prescribed by the law. In practice, the value accorded to this leverage is overstated as the rates of collaboration in the cases that involve mandatory minimums can be compared to the average rate of all the federal cases. Additionally, only particular defendants in the cases that involve organized crimes, especially the ones who are close to the peak of the pyramid, can be able to provide assistance that will beneficial. Therefore, the outcome is the more serious offenders instead of the low-level criminals who are not likely to commit crimes again enjoy this decrease in sentences. Reforms on the mandatory minimum sentences are important in the management of overcrowding in prisons as it will necessitated the movement of prisoners as required to the lower levels of security together with community supervision. This will ultimately relieve the extra pressure caused by overcrowding that may lead to closure of prisons as well as increased re-offenses. Overall, the funds that are directed to corrections can be more efficiently utilized on supervised releases rather than when offenders and incarcerated. Further, the minor offenders who are not violent will get more benefits while the propensity for them re-offending will reduce in the case of treatment programs compared to the spending time in prison. Therefore, reforms of this law will enhance public safety while at the same time leading to considerable savings in the days to come through decreasing the periods offenders serve sentences and allowing the use of electronic tracking and other inexpensive but efficient types of supervision. Ease taxpayer burden It is important to remember that there are always easy solutions to human issues and it has become obvious that embracing mandatory minimums as a plausible solution to disparities in sentencing was a not a wise idea. The main issue in the taxpayers view is that this sentencing policy have become excessively costly as in 2004, the American taxpayer spent more than five billion of federal prisons, which was an increase of more than nine hundred percent from 1982. This increase in costs is as a result of the extended use of prison sentences for crimes linked to drugs as well as prolonged sentences that are prescribed by the mandatory minimums (Carlson & Garrett, 1999). Offenders who are linked to drugs are the biggest group that enters the federal prisons every year with a third of all the people being sentenced in federal courts being drug offenders. The escalation in costs of corrections at the level of the state has also been high as spending has skyrocketed from six billion dollars to more than fifty billion dollars (Carlson & Garrett, 1999). These extremely high costs are affecting states at a time that they are already required to reduce spending as a consequence of the hurting economy. The advantages of mandatory minimums have no justification for the burden that falls on the taxpayers and the use of illegal drugs has plateaued instead of decreasing. This creates the impression that mandatory minimums have developed to be a prohibition for the poor, as it is a crude and incompetent response by the government to an issue that has existed for more time than the government. Conclusion and further study Inflexible sentencing rules are supposed to leave room for adjustments in particular instances where a sentence that is determined by the law would be ordinarily unjust in the same manner that the law is supposed to be tempered with equity. There are no statutes in existence that have the ability to address all the variables in each case and any trials to do this through the use of mandatory minimums has resulted in sentences in some cases that are totally not measurable to the federal sentencing legislations. However, the issue can be corrected through giving the district courts more sentencing discretion as this would make the status quo better through the elimination of punishments that are not deserved without directly undercutting the benefits of criminal law. It can be concluded that very many people go to prison in America for a prolonged period for reasons that are not substantial as far as law enforcement is concerned. Even though imprisonment has an integral part to play in the justice system of the United States, extensive incarceration at all the levels of justice is not effective and sustainable as it burdens the country economically while also including human and moral costs that cannot be calculated. Therefore, a collection of new policies leaving most of the crimes to the state courts to deal with, increase the usage of drug-treatment initiative as substitutes to imprisonment and expanding compassionate release should be developed for the older prisoners whose crimes were not violent and have already served a considerable percentage of their sentence. References Carlson, P., & Garrett, J. (1999). Prison and jail administration. Gaithersburg, Md.: Aspen Publishers. Cole, G., & Smith, C. (2013). Criminal justice in America. Belmont, Calif: Wadsworth Pub. Co. Council of Europe.,. (2010). Penitentiary Questions: Council of Europe Conventions, Recommendations and Resolutions. Strasbourg: Council of Europe Publishing. Reamer, F. (2003). Criminal lessons. New York: Columbia University Press. Sharp, S. (2013). Reduce my prison sentence. Port Orange[S.l.]: Sunbelt Publishing. Read More