Essay On Mandatory Minimum Law

The justice system has to take a new approach to enforce law that place minor drug offenses in jail for long periods of time and actually

The author has included two research questions: whether or not the original intent of the Three Strikes law is understood and whether the law has effectively reduced crime and recidivism rates. The method used in the article is case study whereby the author focuses on the California version of the Three Strikes law. In addition, the article employs a multidisciplinary approach in analyzing the case study including history, political science and sociology. The author found out that the California Three Strikes Law has failed to meet its initial goal of reducing the number of repeat offenders in the prison system.

The “Three Strikes Law” has been highly controversial since it was introduced by our government in the early and into the mid 1990’s. Specifically the “Three Strikes Law” looks to target persistent and prior offenders to impose harsher sentences. Since such a small percentage of the population commits such a large percent of crime, the “Three Strikes Law” was designed to incapacitate the repeat offenders. The mandated and elongated prison sentences given out by the judges for repeat offenders have been criticized and enclose both benefits and detriments. Throughout this paper I will look to delve deeper into the “Three Strikes Law” to determine the constitutionality of the statute while looking at specific case examples to support my theory

Introduction Since the War on drugs began American has had a prison problem. The goal of this era and the tough on crime era that proceeded it the goal was to be tough on crime in order to stop it. This meant mass incarceration and hard time for offenses such as drug use (drug policy: facts). The 1990’s saw the biggest increase of the prison population with federal policies such as three strikes. Today these polices has made America the number incarcerated group in the planet despite having only 5% of the world’s population (ACLU: Prison Facts).

The effects of the Three Strikes Law on California’s economy were evident through the significant costs that were required to house inmates for the duration of the sentences imposed by the law. As of 2009, the California Department of Corrections estimated those costs to have been 19.2 billion dollars (California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, 2009). From 1985 to 2010, California’s prison budget increased from four percent to ten percent. Meanwhile, the state’s higher education budget decreased from eleven percent to less than six percent. The health and welfare and K12 funding also decreased because of the additional funding required to house the growing number of inmates who were imprisoned under the Three Strikes Law.

The existence of mandatory minimums are a major issue in the United States today. Since the implementation of Mandatory minimums, the prison population has increased 800%. This massive rise in prisoner population has come with devastating economic and human costs. The death of Len Bias, the moral panic that ensued, and corporate looking to make a profit off of it, have all culminated in the implementation of mandatory minimums. Len Bias was an American college basketball player who had just been recruited to play in the NBA, he died in 1986 due to a heart attack believed to have been caused by cocaine use.

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.

The theory is that if someone has already been convicted of multiple violent felonies, they are unlikely to change their behavior and may continue to be a danger to society if released from prison. By imposing longer sentences on these individuals, the hope is that they will be kept off the streets and unable to commit further crimes. However, some argue that persistent violent felony offender status is too harsh and does not take into account individual circumstances. For example, someone may have committed multiple violent felonies early in life and then turned their life around, but under this law, they could still face a mandatory minimum sentence of 20 years to life for any future violent felony convictions. Additionally, critics argue that this enhancement disproportionately affects people of color, who are more likely to be convicted of violent crimes and receive longer sentences than white individuals.

In addition to greatly affecting the otherwise unlikely citizens of America, Tough on Crime policies have greatly affected minority groups in America; perhaps more so than of any other group of citizens. To begin, from the 1980 on through the year 1995, the incarceration rates among drug offenders increased by more than 1000 percent. Notably, by the year 1995 one out of every four inmates in any given correctional facility was a drug offender. In addition of that 1000 percent increase, drug offenders accounted for more than 80 percent of the total growth in the federal inmate population and 50 percent of the growth of the state prison population from 1985 to 1995 (Stith, web). In addition, once in the system, the probability of receiving harsher

Only 18.3% (337,882) were for the sale or manufacture of a drug” (p. 23). Therefore, the individuals who are likely to enter the already overcrowded prisons may be users and the actual not distributors themselves. Thus, prison space that is intended to be reserved for murders and sexual predators is instead being occupied by substance

What Should Be Done To Reduce Non-Violent Offender Incarceration?” In this essay, we will discuss how prison have long been over crowned with non-violent offenders for decades. The cost of incarceration for non-violent offenders has cost this country nearly two billion dollars a year. In the United States the cost catalyst is estimated at 175 billion dollars spent in prisons on crimes committed by non-violent Offenders. We imprisons 1.3 million in state prison 767,600 in city and county jails, also 205,000 in federal jail (Katel.

It began in the 1980s, when high crime led counsels to send people to prison for longer sentences. The country’s war on drugs lead strict sentencing procedures, which reduced the preference of judges. In a 2013 study "Why are so many Americans in prison?", Steven Raphael and Michael Stoll, professors of public policy at Berkeley and UCLA, found that changes in sentences for drug offences were important, accounting for about twenty percent of the increase in the incarceration rate. Yet, stricter sentences for violent offenders accounted for nearly half. Many convicts serving long sentences were never dangerous, or have matured with age and no longer posed a danger to the community.

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

The current system that incarcerates people over and over is unsustainable and does not lower the crime rate nor encourage prisoner reformation. When non-violent, first time offenders are incarcerated alongside violent repeat offenders, their chance of recidivating can be drastically altered by their experience in prison. Alternative sentencing for non-violent drug offenders could alleviate this problem, but many current laws hinder many possible solutions. Recently lawmakers have made attempts to lower the recidivism rates in America, for example the Second Chance Act helps aid prisoners returning into society after incarceration. The act allows states to appropriate money to communities to help provide services such as education, drug treatment programs, mental health programs, job corps services, and others to aid in offenders returning to society after incarceration (Conyers, 2013).

You didn’t ask questions because you thought you knew this person and you could use some extra cash. Although this is your first time ever being in trouble with the law, you are facing some serious jail time. Unfortunately, this is the case for many first-time non-violent offenders as a result of mandatory minimum laws. What are mandatory