A Quote by Ralph Northam

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.

Ralph Northam

Quote Topics

Also Bear Costs Expensive Free Governments Laws Mandatory Minimum Only Overly Prison Taxpayers Ultimately

Quote Author

Ralph Northam
American - Politician
Born: September 13, 1959

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.

Michelle Alexander

Mandatory minimums have been shown to be discriminatory and waste the taxpayers' money.

Bobby Scott

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.

Donald Trump

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.

Michelle Alexander

British taxpayers should not bear the costs of problems in the Eurozone.

George Osborne

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.

Carly Simon

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.

Anthony Kennedy

Slavery results from laws, laws are made by governments, and, therefore people can only be freed from slavery by the abolition of governments.... And it is time for people to understand that governments not only are not necessary, but are harmful and most highly immoral institutions, in which a self-respecting, honest man cannot and must not take part.

Leo Tolstoy

Overly restrictive regulations not only stifle the private sector; they also ultimately hurt consumers.

Ajit Pai

As a general rule, governments are unlimited in their powers. All free governments, perhaps all other governments, are entitled in some shape or other to make laws and to repeal or amend them.

Samuel Freeman Miller

[Before the Civil Rights Act of 1964], many governments in southern states forced people to segregate by race. Civil rights advocates fought to repeal these state laws, but failed. So they appealed to the federal government, which responded with the Civil Rights Act of 1964. But this federal law didn't simply repeal state laws compelling segregation. It also prohibited voluntary segregation. What had been mandatory became forbidden. Neither before nor after the Civil Rights Act were people free to make their own decisions about who they associated with.

Harry Browne

Why, when the economist gives advice to his society, is he so often cooly ignored? He never ceases to preach free trade, and protectionism is growing in the United States. He deplores the perverse effects of minimum wage laws, and the legal minimum is regularly raised each 3 or 5 years. He brands usury laws as a medieval superstition, but no state hurries to repeal its law.

George Stigler

Data do not indicate that mandatory minimum sentences keep our communities safer. Instead, mandatory minimums are disproportionately harming people and communities of color.

Ralph Northam

Some of the folks we see are in for defending themselves against their abusers, or drug charges that, because of the California state prison system, they have mandatory sentencing and life in prison for three counts of simple drug possession, or whatever. I find it not only helpful but, I think, necessary in maintaining my grounding and my perspective. Because music is such an unrealistic job to have. It's a really lucky job to have, but it's also very unrealistic.

Thao Nguyen

Creating a new air traffic control regulator outside of the FAA would be a risky and expensive undertaking, the consequences and costs of which would be borne by American taxpayers and the traveling public.