Question

What are the arguments against mandatory minimum sentencing laws? Name two from the paragragh below.

Answer 1

Based on this excerpt, there are several different arguments to be made against mandatory minimum sentencing laws. These include:

1) Limits the judges ability to take into account unique circumstances- As it discusses in the excerpt, mandatory minimums leave the judges powerless in the sense that they cannot give a shorter sentence than the federally prescribed amount of years. Even if a judge wants to have a shorter sentence for a first time or second time offender of a non violent crime, he/she does not have the legal ability to do so.

2) Money- Mandatory minimums ensure that individuals are kept in the prison system for a significant amount of time. Considering that prisons are funded by tax payer money, this shows that this type of mandatory minimum policy we have right now will result in a lot of taxpayer money going towards jails rather than other areas of society.