Mandatory Minimum Sentencing
A Review of Literature With America's recently increasing problem with illegal substances; a war on drugs has erupted. American drug use has exponentially grown over the last 60 years, causing law enforcement agencies to crack down on drug use, trafficking, abuse and possession. President Nixon stated that the United States' War on Drugs was "public enemy number one" (Jarecki, Barnes, 2013). In response to this growing issue, the United State's criminal justice system began sentencing criminals to jail for a "mandatory minimum" period of time in drug related offenses. With hopes of making a dent in the drug war and of taking the guess work out of sentencing, the courts adopted the law. These longer more harsh sentences have had a positive outcome on the war on drugs. It has helped by getting offenders off the streets and the substances out of the hands of Americans. The criminals that are being sentenced to these long terms deserve the time they are given because they chose to break the U.S. law and came into contact with illegal controlled substances. By giving these mandatory minimum sentences, the criminals are off the streets and away from the pressures of drugs and crime where they used to live, and have the chance to regain a new life through prison rehabilitation. The mandatory minimum sentences are given not only to help punish criminals individually, but also to help the judicial system by way of giving the judges a guideline and a standard to enforce in court. As discussed in "The House I Live In", the start of the1950s brought a large influx in narcotic drug use in the United States. This greatly supplemented the already high drug use in urban America. Although the drug use was centered in a very small majority of the population, it was putting a large burden on society. With this burden, the United States politicians decided that making changes in the criminal justice and judicial systems was the only way to prevent the spread of drugs thorough the country. In 1984, the judicial system created the "mandatory minimum" sentence structures, which means: "a person convicted of a crime must be imprisoned for a minimum term, as opposed to leaving the length of punishment up to judges" ("Mandatory Minimum Sentencing," n.d.) . This means that no matter the circumstance behind a drug related crime there are certain mandatory minimum sentences given to the criminal. While some would argue that these new regulations puts a greater strain on law enforcement and prisons, they actually are making a very large and long term contribution because taking offenders off the streets for longer time periods means they will be less inclined to start back up once they are released from prison. No matter what drug or quantity is involved, there is a mandatory sentence that corresponds to it. Cokie Roberts (1999) notes that "Now there are over forty mandatory minimum penalty provisions in eight different statutes" (para. 12). These forty Mandatory minimums were created to flat-line the punishments on drugs. So, offenders with marijuana or crack-cocaine both have a separate mandatory minimum period of time to serve although the drugs are very different. The point being that even though most drugs are very different in their nature and problems that they cause, the offender must serve time in correspondence to their crime. No one drug is seen as any more or any less violent than another drug, thus pushing people away from being connected to those drugs at all because they now know there is an exact amount of time to be served for it. "The bulk of the sentences are handed down under statutes which penalized the possession, importation, exportation, or manufacture or distribution of controlled substances" ("Mandatory Minimums in Drug Sentencing", 1999). Included in the process of sentencing is whether or not the offender was simply in possession or was also trafficking the drugs. All of these areas are controlled by the statutes which govern the mandatory minimum sentences. Those who decide the fate of any criminal know how difficult it can be to determine what one person deserves over another in the law. That is why the mandatory minimal sentencing makes more sense in the real world. So now, instead of playing with one judge's biased and another's emotions, judges have a strict guideline to follow. "The Guidelines [coined] congressional and administrative policies to reduce sentence disparity by all but eliminating judicial discretion. The Guidelines replaced indeterminate sentencing within statutorily defined limits with presumptive structured directives." (Albonetti, 2011, p.1152) With this modern take on how to prosecute criminals, society can hope for a change to come when people begin to see how strict the government prosecutes offenders. Under the mandatory minimums, judges don’t have the opportunity to sentence criminals for miniscule amounts of time. Effectually, criminals of any circumstance can know that getting in trouble for a drug crime is no joke and really affects your life. Law enforcement hopes that by making a clean-cut sentencing program, fewer people will want to risk their time in prison just for drugs. They also hope to keep the criminals off the streets and away from drugs for a longer period of time. Congressman Hutchinson (1999) states that the "deterrence theory" is the only way to help America's drug problems (Mandatory Minimum in Drug sentencing). Also, while some officials seem to target offenders based on race (Jarecki, Barnes, 2013), many African Americans are simply by chance more common offenders when it comes to crime. In reality, drug enforcement officers simply appear to focus on black males as a result of their upbringing in an impoverished and crime-ridden area. Mandatory Minimum sentencing will help impoverished neighborhoods because once other people who were brought up the same way as other criminals see how much of your life is taken from you for even small infractions then they will learn not to get involved in drugs because it won't be worth it. In conclusion, the mandatory minimum sentencing is very beneficial to society because it takes both criminals and drugs off the streets. Mandatory minimums help by regulating sentencing and assuring that criminals serve the time they deserve. It also helps judges and law enforcement because the guidelines institute a fair sentencing process that does not show special treatment to any criminals. Lastly, mandatory minimums remove the doubts about officers focusing on race, and enforce a strict and equal process. Mandatory minimum sentencing for drug related crimes is beneficial to society because it assures the community that criminals are treated like they deserve no matter race or affections of a judge.

References
Albonetti, C. (2011). Judicial Discretion in Federal Sentencing. Criminology & Public Policy American Society of Criminology, , 10(4), 1151-1155.
Jarecki, E., Barnes, J., Fraser, N., Glover, D., Legend, J., Pitt, B., Simmons, R., ... Virgil Films (Firm),. (2013). The house I live in.
Mandatory minimums in drug sentencing: a valuable weapon in the war on drugs or a handcuff on judicial discretion?. (1999). George Town University: Georgetown University Law Center. American Criminal Law Review.
Mandatory Minimum Sentencing Law & Legal Definition. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://definitions.uslegal.com/m/mandatory-minimum-sentencing/