A Quote by Michelle Alexander
Mandatory minimum sentences give no discretion to judges about the amount of time that the person should receive once a guilty verdict is rendered. Harsh mandatory minimum sentences for drug offenses were passed by Congress in the 1980s as part of the war on drugs and the "get tough" movement, sentences that have helped to fuel our nation's prison boom and have also greatly aggravated racial disparities, particularly in the application of mandatory minimum sentences for crack cocaine.
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Mandatory minimum sentences give no discretion to judges about the amount of time that the person should receive once a guilty verdict is rendered.
The federal sentencing guidelines should be revised downward. By contrast to the guidelines, I can accept neither the necessity nor the wisdom of federal mandatory minimum sentences. In too many cases, mandatory minimum sentences are unwise and unjust.
I will build the wall and I will impose tough mandatory minimum - remember this - tough mandatory minimum prison sentences for deported illegal immigrants who try to reenter the country. They keep coming back and back and back.
Data do not indicate that mandatory minimum sentences keep our communities safer. Instead, mandatory minimums are disproportionately harming people and communities of color.
Throughout the 1970s, '80s and '90s, federal mandatory minimum laws were implemented that forced judges to deliver sentences far lengthier than they would have if allowed to use their own discretion. The result has been decades of damage, particularly to young people.
On my first day in office, I am going to ask Congress to pass Kate`s Law, named for Kate Steinle to ensure that criminal aliens convicted of illegal reentry receive strong mandatory minimum sentences - strong. And then we get them out.
Prosecutors frequently overcharge, load up charges on individual defendants, knowing that three strikes laws and harsh mandatory minimum sentences will force people to plea bargain and essentially convict themselves because they're terrified of doing a life sentence for a relatively minor crime.
Even without mandatory sentences, judges are still capable of levying tough penalties for serious offenses - and just as in states like Texas that have 'tough on crime' reputations, this can be done without jeopardizing public safety.
We need to take a hard look at the war on drugs and the number of non-violent offenders who end up getting their lives destroyed by going to prison. We need to look at mandatory minimum sentencing and give judges more flexibility when there are issues of drug abuse or addiction.
He was a first-time nonviolent possible offender, ... And under the mandatory minimums, he was put in prison for 15 years. Not only does the punishment not fit the crime, but the mandatory minimums don't give judges any discretion to look at the background of the case, to read into the specifics of the case. I don't know a judge who really is in favor of the mandatory minimums.
In response to the advocacy of groups like Mothers Against Drunk Driving, most states adopted tougher laws to punish drunk driving. Numerous states now have some type of mandatory sentencing for this offense - typically two days in jail for a first offense and two to ten days for a second offense. Possession of a tiny amount of crack cocaine, on the other hand, was given a mandatory minimum sentence of five years in prison.
We cannot just say law and order. We have to say - we have to come forward with a plan that is going to divert people from the criminal justice system, deal with mandatory minimum sentences, which have put too many people away for too long for doing too little.
The federal government overrules state laws where state laws permit medicinal marijuana for people dying of cancer. The federal government goes in and arrests these people, put them in prison with mandatory, sometimes life sentences. This war on drugs is totally out of control. If you want to regulate cigarettes and alcohol and drugs, it should be at the state level.
Just as you can practice three-word sentences or sentences that travel across time zones, so can you practice writing sentences that breathe unshakable conviction.
Not only are mandatory minimum laws overly punitive and discriminatory, but they're also expensive. Prison is not free. Governments, and ultimately taxpayers, bear the costs.
These days, I like to think of sentences as workers. Only one of their jobs is to look and sound good. Sentences are the carriers of plot. They're the conjurers of images, the conveyors of tone and meaning and voice. The best sentences surprise us.
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