Minimum Sentencing

PLCY201
October 16th, 2018
Nicole Haskel

The current prison and judicial state in the United States of America is one that is greatly
criticized and something that is in need of reform. The U.S. is the world leader of incarceration
with close to 2.2 million people in its prisons, a population that has increased 500 percent over
the last forty years (The Sentencing Project 2). Mass incarceration has been a problem because of
the high increase in prisoners in the last decades, a result of The War on Drugs which created
harsh laws that put nonviolent drug offenders behind bars (The Atlantic 1). Mandatory minimum
sentencing is one of these laws, which requires offenders to serve a definite sentence for specific
crimes. Although over the years the country has tried to work on revising minimum sentences,
the Trump administration is trying to do the opposite. Attorney General Jeff Sessions has been
telling prosecutors to charge suspects with the most serious offenses they can prove, “ones that
carry substantial sentence, including mandatory minimum sentences” (CNN 1). What does that
mean for the future of the country, and what will be the impact? Minimum sentencing should be
eliminated because of its negative effects on not only the prisoners but also the general American
public.

The result of minimum sentencing has generated a the problem of mass incarceration which has
impacted the entire country. Through minimum sentencing, many nonviolent and drug offenders
have been put in prison that would not have been targeted in the first place. Forty seven percent
of federal prisoners are in for drug related crimes, and “most have no prior criminal record for
violence” (The Sentencing Project 2), with half of these drug offenders carrying marijuana which
has been proven to be a safer drug (ALCU 1). Thus, most of these suspects end up being targeted
with a strong likelihood of going to prison. For first time offenders with no prior record for
violence, it seems as if the punishment does not fit the crime. These prisoners should not be
compared to and put in the same area as higher level offenders. On top of this, such a high influx
of drug perpetrators has developed the problem of mass incarceration which requires lots of
resources and money to maintain all of these prisoners. The American taxpayers are the ones
who end up having to pay more taxes to fund these prisons, which mostly contain offenders that
are not even violent and not a true hazard to society.

Minimum sentencing has also generated a stigma towards drug users. As most minimum
sentences are directed towards drug offenders, it started in the beginning to label such users as
criminals and a shame to the country. Now in health classes across the country, American
children are taught about not only the effects of drugs to their health, but also the criminal
consequences. Drugs are being “treated as a crime instead of a public health issue” (CNN 1),
with the thought that locking up drug users would stop the problem. If the goal of The War on
Drugs was to eliminate drug use, it failed completely. Instead, it has just made it so these users
would be sneakier with their drug practices to not get caught by the authorities. There are many
ways to address the problem without necessarily targeting these offenders as horrible people. The
Law Enforcement Leaders to Reduce Crime and Incarceration have identified areas of reform,
like having more mental health and drug treatment, and reclassifying crimes which will
eventually change mandatory minimums for drug and nonviolent crimes (NBC News 1). This
way the public can have a different view on drug users, instead of labeling them as criminals,
they are people who just need some extra help to come out of addiction or with their mental
issues. Eliminating minimum sentencing towards drug crimes would eventually help with the
mass incarceration issue and then taxpayer money can go towards benefiting society as a whole
and helping people with drug problems.

Many people do believe that mandatory minimum sentencing is something that is effective and
people who commit drug related crimes should be in prison. When the idea of eliminating
minimum sentencing comes up, the main critique of it is if there will actually be a change. If all
of the prisoners currently held for drug related offenses were released, “it would reduce prison
population by twenty percent… but it still would not be sufficient to end mass incarceration”
(The Atlantic 1), so it does not seem like eliminating mandatory minimum sentencing helps out
the greater problem of mass incarceration. Even though the reduction of prison populations is not
as large as expected, twenty percent is still a significant amount. That is twenty percent of
prisoners that could get the mental/drug help they need and start a cycle to eliminate the drug
problem for the younger generation. Little by little, these people are able to realize their mistakes
that got them into prison and it makes them advocates and examples for others to stop using
drugs.

There is also the question if giving offenders a second chance is worth it. As this an alternative
of minimum sentences, people wonder if it is still ok to let lawbreakers just roam around free.
There is always the example of someone like Tyrone Howard who keeps getting out of drug and
violent situations where he would have been incarcerated but then continues to go back to
criminal behavior (The New York Times 1). Every once in awhile there will be convicts like
Howard who continually slip through the cracks of the judicial system and proceed to do illegal
behavior but for the most part this is not the case. In actuality, drug and nonviolent offenders in
jail “start a cycle of incarceration that turns first time offenders into repeat offenders” (NBC 1).
What could have been a one time thing continues on after jail because prisoners are now in an
area with bad influences. Instead of getting the help they need for drug problems, these people
are now affected by the criminals around them to do more illegal activity because that is the only
life they know while in prison. Even though prison is a punishment with an end goal to positively
affect the prisoners, the reality is that it is just a lot of criminals in one area with the same
motives as before they were turned in. In the end, minimum sentencing is just a small dispute
that contributes to the judicial and prison system but eliminating it will start a chain reaction that
could slowly solve the drug and mass incarceration problem in the United States.
 Works Cited

Connor, Tracy. "Police Leaders Join Forces to Reduce Mass Incarceration." NBC
News, 21 Oct. 2015, U.S. News sec. NBC News,​ ​www.nbcnews.com/news/
us-news/police-leaders-join-forces-reduce-mass-incarceration-n448531.
Accessed 17 Oct. 2018.

Foran, Clare. "What Can the U.S. Do About Mass Incarceration?" The Atlantic, 28
Apr. 2016,​ ​www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/04/
ending-mass-incarceration/475563/. Accessed 17 Oct. 2018.

Jarrett, Laura, and Eugene Scott. "AG Sessions paves way for stricter sentencing
in criminal cases." CNN, 12 May 2017, Politics sec.,​ ​www.cnn.com/2017/05/12/
politics/sessions-criminal-charging-memo/index.html. Accessed 17 Oct. 2018.

“Marijuana Arrests by the Numbers.” ​American Civil Liberties Union​,

www.aclu.org/gallery/marijuana-arrests-numbers​.

McKinley, James C., et al. “Tyrone Howard, Suspect in Officer's Killing, Had String of Second
Chances.” ​The New York Times,​ The New York Times, 27 Oct. 2015,
www.nytimes.com/2015/10/28/nyregion/tyrone-howard-accused-of-killing-officer-had-st
ring-of-second-chances.html?WT.nav=top-news&action=click&hp=&module=second-co
lumn-region&pgtype=Homepage®ion=top-news​.

“Trends in U.S. Corrections.” ​Sentencingproject.org​, The Sentencing Project, June 2018,

sentencingproject.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/Trends-in-US-Corrections.pdf.