Federal trial Judge speaks out about mandatory minimum sentencing

[downzero]

"How Mandatory Minimums Forced Me to Send More Than 1,000 Nonviolent Drug Offenders to Federal Prison"

How Mandatory Minimums Forced Me to Send More Than 1,000 Nonviolent Drug Offenders to Federal Prison | The Nation

 

[Raskolnikov]

I never thought that I would find myself agreeing with The Nation, but there's a first for everything. I do not believe in mandatory minimum sentencing for drug use offenses. In fact, I don't believe in putting people behind bars for using drugs. The goal of incarceration is to isolate criminals from the rest of society. Prison is much more about giving offenders their "just deserts" than rehabilitation. Incarceration has never been proven (on a macro level) to reduce recidivism of drug offenders. On a side note, jails and prisons are completely overrun with drugs. Prohibition has never worked. It doesn't work in society, and it doesn't work in prison. If you don't understand this, you've obviously never worked in public safety.

 

[IndyDave1776]

Two problems here. First, we elect/appoint judges to exercise judgment. That cannot be done with legislation hemming them in to the point they can do no more than proctor a preordained conclusion. Second, as previously stated, prison does little or nothing to improve the problem with drugs.

If we really wanted to improve the situation with drugs, first end the prohibition. That would eliminate the artifically high prices which drive the secondary crimes associated with the drug culture. Second, far less government. In the absence of having to work ourselves as hard as we do to provide not only for ourselves but somewhere between half again and double that carrying dead weight in various forms courtesy of our bloated .gov, in addition to onerous, burdensome, and incomprehensible laws, far fewer people would feel a psychological need to 'escape' greatly reducing the demand for mind altering drugs.

I propose we try these two things and then regroup from there.

 

[cobber]

If citizens don't like the law, they can vote in new legislators. Apparently most people don't find these sentences objectionable, or simply don't care?

 

[IndyDave1776]

If citizens don't like the law, they can vote in new legislators. Apparently most people don't find these sentences objectionable, or simply don't care?

What I learned when I worked for the Department of Correction is that most people are a whole lot closer to the line with the law than they realize. They largely live under the fantasy that basically if you live by the 10 Commandments and pay your taxes you are light years away from the wrong side of the criminal justice system, when the law is so convoluted that nothing could be further from the truth. Unfortunately, as they live in this false sense of assurance, most don't care in the least about the details about how the legislature, courts, police, and prisons deal with those filthy scum criminals so long as they can continue to feel insulated from both the criminals and the criminal justice system, even if they only feel insulated when their insulation is in fact an illusion. As long as they continue to buy into the illusion, they will feel no incentive whatsoever to think about any such things, never mind pressuring their legislators.

 

[HoughMade]

I am generally against statutory mandatory minimum sentences. Every case is different so a judge should have discretion. One for instance- I'm no fan of adultery or teenaged sex, but in a local case, a person will have a 10 year mandatory minimum sentence for having sex with a minor that would not even be a crime in Indiana (above the age of consent), because state lines were crossed. There's a bit more to it, but 10 years for having consensual sex with a 17 year old?

 

[downzero]

If citizens don't like the law, they can vote in new legislators. Apparently most people don't find these sentences objectionable, or simply don't care?

Read the piece more carefully. What the Judge points out is that while nearly all of us want to be tough on crime in the aggregate, that idea has precluded us from looking at each individual case. Drug prohibition has torn up families, increased addiction, poverty, and other social evils. Society calls this being "tough on crime," but at the end of the day, we spend tens of billions of dollars locking people up, and still billions more supporting their families after we put their addicted loved ones in the slammer. These aren't even big time dealers, and we've created a cycle of prison sentences--and the federal sentences are long and there is no parole--simply because of election calls/posturing to be tough on crime. It's a complete farce.

 

[EyesDownfield]

The problem is that the federal government cannot prevent drug use and addiction through regulation and harsh sentencing. Prohibition only serves to create a black market with exorbitant prices; allowing low-life thugs, who would otherwise be powerless, to become drug kingpins and wield their own small standing armies. This creates a real danger where one would not have previously existed, for without the ability to monopolize the local drug trade, the drug lord would have no power.

Portugal decriminalized drugs and drug use drastically decreased:

Ten Years After Decriminalization, Drug Abuse Down by Half in Portugal - Forbes

The idea that normal citizens would become drug addicts without laws against it is absolutely asinine.

 

[Raskolnikov]

Portugal decriminalized drugs and drug use drastically decreased:

Ten Years After Decriminalization, Drug Abuse Down by Half in Portugal - Forbes

The idea that normal citizens would become drug addicts without laws against it is absolutely asinine.

Absolutely. Most of us (myself included) have already made our decisions regarding drug use. Even if cocaine or meth were legalized tomorrow, I'm not going to the corner store to buy a baggie. I'm just not interested in becoming addicted to something. The vast majority of people feel the same way.