Abolishing Mandatory Minimum Sentencing On The United States

seem like the best way at first, in the long run money would be better

Mandatory sentencing has good intentions that people should be required to serve a minimum amount of time for the crime they committed. If someone broke into a person’s house and stole a lot of their belongings, the victims would have a little assurance that the criminal will pay for what they did by going to jail for at least ten years or more. But since incarceration does not always convince or prevent ex-convicts from re-offending, many people might question why they are even let back into society. Incarceration is pricy and the purpose of this paper is to find ways that reduce the number of people locked up in a beneficiary way to society. If people are more likely to commit a crime after incarceration, then having someone serve ten years of prison for having drugs on them will probably increase their rate of reoffending more than if they were in there for a shorter period of

The tension between rehabilitation and punishment has been increasing dramatically. This is because there have been sharp rises in the prison population and repeat offender rates. When one area is over emphasized in relation to the other, there is the possibility that imbalances will occur. Over the course of time, these issues can create challenges that will impact the criminal justice system and society at large. (Gadek, 2010) (Clear, 2011) (Gatotch, 2011)

Ever since the first prison opened in the United States in 1790, incarceration has been the center of the nations criminal justice system. Over this 200 year period many creative alternatives to incarceration have been tried, and many at a much lower cost than imprisonment. It wasn’t until the late 1980’s when our criminal justice systems across the country began experiencing a problem with overcrowding of facilities. This problem forced lawmakers to develop new options for sentencing criminal offenders.

Three salient points from the films/lectures were assessments of change from the five stages of change model (Norcross, j. c., n.d.), the Fair Sentencing Act for mandatory minimum sentences (American Civil Liberties Union, 2010), and eliminating government involvement in regulation of drugs and alcohol substance, while allowing the various states to manage control (ABC News.com, 2007).

The United States prison population has grown seven-fold over the past forty years, and many Americans today tend to believe that the high levels of incarceration in our country stem from factors such as racism, socioeconomic differences, and drugs. While these factors have contributed to the incarceration rate present in our country today, I argue that the most important reason our country has such a high incarceration rate is the policy changes that have occurred since the 1970s. During this time, the United States has enacted policy changes that have produced an astounding rise in the use of imprisonment for social control. These policy changes were enacted in order to achieve greater consistency, certainty, and severity and include sentencing laws such as determinate sentencing, truth-in-sentencing, mandatory minimum sentencing, and three strikes laws (National Research Council 2014). Furthermore, I argue that mandatory sentencing has had the most significant effect on the incarceration rate.

The other source I’ve read so far is web article titled Reconsidering Mandatory Minimum Sentences: The Arguments for and Against Potential Reforms, by Paul Larkin. Although it is not a peer-reviewed, scholarly article, it does provide a lot of insight into both the problems and benefits of mandatory minimum sentencing, including the unduly harsh minimums, how the “move up the chain” method for law enforcement isn’t working, and how they eliminate the dishonesty in sentencing that characterized the 20th century.

If mass incarceration is a cancer of society, mandatory minimum sentencing laws are the tumors that exacerbate society’s condition. These mandatory minimum sentencing laws require a certain length of prison time if

Vol. 82, no. 1. Winter 2002. p. 24. Online: EBSCOHost. Santiago Canyon College Library. August 6, 2017.

This essay explains sentencing in the United States Criminal Justice system. The objectives of punishment in the United States corrections is to help deter crime and to ensure reoffenders don’t reoffend. Sentencing impacts the corrections system and society in a positive manor by eliminating offenders out of the community. Sentencing may include one of the following: probation, fines, prison, community service, probation and so forth depending on the state you reside and the type of offense you commit. Each crime committed doesn’t have a set sentence, therefore they are determined on a case to case basis. The main goal of the criminal justice system is to defend the community and serve justice. Sentencing plays a vital role in the Criminal Justice system.

Mandatory sentencing has been a big driver in the large population of incarcerated individuals in the United States. District attorneys are more aggressive in how they file charges against the arrestee. While the country has seen a decline in crime, new

Determining what program reduces recidivism with similar programs is just the beginning to reducing recidivism. Whether the program is directed at males or females, juveniles or adults or a combination of the group, several researchers have come to several different conclusions, and the bottom line is this, all programs does not work for all criminals and there will be an adjustment of some sort to create programs that may work for a majority of the criminal population in reducing recidivism.

Mandatory minimum sentences are court decisions where judicial discretion is limited by law. Usually when people are convicted of certain crimes they must be punished with at least a minimum number of years in prison. The article I picked to review is an article on mandatory minimum sentences. The article reviews the pros and cons of mandatory sentencing. I will go over the pros and cons described in the article and give my opinion on how I feel about them.

Until the early 1970s, the sentencing of crime convicts was based on the principle of rehabilitation of juvenile and adult offenders. Legislatures set maximum authorized sentences for various types of crimes and judges decided on the prison term or probation or fines. Correctional officials and parole boards had the powers to reduce the time served for good behavior and release prisoners early. In the 1980s and 1990s, the emphasis shifted to deterrence by imposing mandatory minimum sentences for certain types of crime, heavier sentences for habitual offenders and the “three-strike” rule for felony convictions. Public opinion supported these changes in the belief that prison terms were just retribution for crimes and incarceration kept criminals off the streets (Mackenzie, 2001).

This can lead to corrupt convictions due to coerce guilty pleas to lesser offenses. This basically gives too much power to prosecutors who use the leverage of mandatory minimum sentences as a bargaining tool. This can be done through false testimonies from a defendant who would probably be going to prison anyway but will lie for a lesser sentence (Batey, 2002). As stated by Batey “Another major reason why mandatory minimum sentencing has failed is that it has given America’s prosecutors too much power in plea bargaining, an imbalance that has led to the incarceration of persons to fearful to insist on the trails that might have acquitted them” (Batey, 2002. P. 2).