Sentencing Essay

Mandatory minimum sentencing for illegal drug laws is not something that should be used. I do not agree with it. There are many examples of people who have little or no criminal record at all who are being punished for years at a time for something that did not bring harm to someone else. The longer someone is in prison the money we have to pay for them being there. " It costs anywhere between $20,000 and $40,000 per year to house inmates in federal and state correctional facilities." (Hirby) According

overcrowded problem. There is no one reason for the overcrowding within the prison system and one has factored in all reasons that can lead up to the cause of overcrowding in order to find a solution to this tremendous issue. Mandatory Sentencing To begin, mandatory sentencing for non-violent and drug- related crimes should be eliminated. This law was established to dispose of the drugs masters and to reduce the selling of drugs in neighborhoods. However, this resulted in an adverse effect; with nonviolent

consequences today, the most notable being mandatory minimum sentencing laws for drug offences. This issue has been extensively researched by Kieran Riley with an article in the Boston University Law Journal titled “Trial by Legislature: Why Statutory Mandatory Minimum Sentences Violate the Separation of Powers Doctrine”, Paul Cassell and Erik Luna with a peer-reviewed scholarly article titled “Sense and Sensibility in Mandatory Minimum Sentencing”, and the Families Against Mandatory Minimums organization

walking free while so many non-violent offenders are locked up? Although various aspects have fueled this inequity of justice, the factors that have contributed the most to this development are, undoubtedly, the War on Drugs and mandatory minimum sentencing laws which have led to punishment disproportionate to the offense. 59% of rape cases and 36.2% of murder cases in the United States are never solved. In 2011, less than half of all violent crimes committed found any resolution. This dilemma poses

J’son West Nov. 12. 2016 CJ 202 Canon Mandatory Minimum Sentencing on Violent Crimes Crime in America is growing at a substantial rate and repeat offenders are playing a huge roll in this growth. Mandatory minimum sentences, first established in Connecticut in 1969 and expanded throughout the 1980s and 1990s, exemplify a shift in public policy to impose a specific amount of imprisonment based on the crime committed and the defendant’s criminal history, and away from other individual offender characteristics

of mandatory minimums have found there to be little conclusive evidence that mandatory minimums do in fact reduce crime (The United States Sentencing Commission). Another concern mandatory minimums pose is the lack of individualized sentencing. As previously mentioned when discussing the positive aspects of mandatory minimums, some view consistency of sentencing as a favorable product of mandatory minimums, nevertheless, there are some significant problems associated with standardizing sentences. Many

section 1 of the Charter as it has failed the prescribed Oakes test. The test gives weight to the law’s objective in comparison to the means of achieving it, which in this case, impaired too heavily on the right of the accused. Mandatory minimum sentencing is “cruel and unusual punishment” The constitutional right in question reads from section 12 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms which states, “everyone has the right not to be subjected to any cruel and unusual treatment or punishment”

Introduction The expansion of mandatory sentencing penalties for federal crimes (especially non-violent drug crimes), which have helped catalyze the increase in the prison population, is an aspect of the criminal justice system that must be reformed. Public officials on both sides of the political spectrum support amending federal mandatory sentencing laws and in July of 2013 Congressman Richard Durbin (D-IL) introduced The Smarter Sentencing Act of 2014. This legislation would lessen mandatory

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 political turmoil and changing social climate of the 1960s contributed to the policies

Consequences of Mandatory Sentencing In recent years several mandatory sentencing laws have been put into motion. The original goals of the mandatory sentencing laws were to stop repeat offenders and to exhibit a "get tough attitude" on crime. These laws have not been working as intended, instead mandatory sentencing has led to some unfortunate consequences. Some of these consequences are overcrowding in prisons and less prison based rehabilitation. Mandatory sentencing laws do not narrowly target