Persuasive Essay On Mandatory Minimums

Todd Davidson was following the Grateful Dead on tour with a friend he roomed with. His friend, unknown to Todd, had set up a drug deal to sell LSD. What Todd’s friend did not know was that his ‘customers’ were not looking for a high, they were undercover cops looking for a drug bust. When the police entered the hotel room, they found Todd’s friend, preparing to sell LSD, and Todd sitting separate from him, uninvolved in the crime. The officers arrested the dealer as well as Todd. Todd claimed to have no participation in the deals, and there was no evidence to prove contrarily. However, that did not keep him from prison. Todd was sentenced to 10 years in prison under a mandatory minimum law (Stewart 115). Mandatory minimums, the majority

Currently there are 80,000 drug offenders in federal prison, making up a little over 60 percent of the prisons’ population (Stewart 113-114). 94 percent of the drug offenders were sentenced under one of the four mandatory minimum statutes passed by Congress between 1984 and 1990 in an attempt to reduce drug use in the United States. Even further, it was in 1998 that “57 percent of drug defendants entering federal prison were first offenders, and 88 percent of them had no weapons.” On average, these 80,000 prisoners are sentenced to approximately 6 and ½ years in prison (Stewart 113-114). And it is due to the prohibition of mitigating circumstances that leads to these situations. The United States’ prisons are overcrowded. New York Times reported that despite the United States only is home to less than 5 percent of the world’s population, the country provides approximately one quarter of the world’s prisoners (Liptak). Yet some will insist that Todd must have been guilty in someway or another, or maybe he was simply an innocent who fell through the inevitable cracks in the system. On the contrary, that is the exact problem with mandatory sentencing, it’s setup allows people to not only slip through cracks, but to land face first and watch their life

A young man named Jay, 25, is walking down the road, his father has lost his job, his mother is very ill. A van pulls up next to this young man and the driver says to him, “I have a great way for you to make good money, are you in?” Societal rules state that the young man should refuse and walk away, but he’s desperate, he wants his mother to recover, so he agrees. This one decision will change his entire life. For the man driving the van is a gang leader, and by Jay agreeing, he is participating in Continued Criminal Enterprising. Continued Criminal Enterprise is a legal term to describe organized crime groups, like gangs and mafias. This gives him 20 years, despite being his first offense. The van has 280 g of Crack ready for distribution. Without even handling the drugs or selling a cent, another 10 years is added on, still for a first offense. There is also a firearm in the car. It has not been used, it’s just there, and it happens to be a short barreled shotgun. Another 15 years (Federal Mandatory). The van is pulled over and a police officer finds all the narcotics and the firearm. And now Jay will be in prison for 45 years at least, until he’s 70 (Federal Mandatory). Jay could have sold his child for sexual purposes, created child pronography, blown up US property, hijacked an airplane, killed a corrections officer, kidnapped a minor, or robbed a bank and still receive less time in prison. 40-15 years less time (Federal