Mandatory Minimum Sentencing.

The law does provide mandatory minimum sentences for nonviolent drug offenses mainly to deter the criminals to reduce the use of controlled substances in the country. This has been effective because the use of controlled substances has gone down. The legal system considersthat the drugs are always in demand, so offenses about them are difficult to temper. The uses of controlled drugs are mostly addicts making them a never-ending market which means the drugs will always be in supply (Doyle, 2018). This is where minimum sentencing is applied, so the defendant in question serves as a lesson to others who consider committing a similar offense. Therefore, nonviolent drug crimes should have a mandatory minimum sentence since the deterrence intention is working to rid the nation of the drugs and the related crimes even though it has a negative effect of overpopulation in the prisons (FAMM, 2021) Mandatory Minimum Sentencing.

The minimum sentencing has reduced the country’s addiction rates, which was witnessed in the opioid pandemic. The minimum sentencing is beneficial to the defendant since it cuts off their exposure to the drugs while at the same time rehabilitating them and reducing their contribution to the expansion of drug offenses (Mauer, 2019).The problem with overpopulation is the cost of avoiding a drug pandemic and deterring the escalation of nonviolent crimes from becoming violent.Nonviolent drug offenses are against should be treated as ordinary crimes to ensure that the law enforcement agencies are not complacent with the law. Each offender gets equal treatment for their actions as provided for in the constitution. The minimum sentence also helps society become safer because a criminal is taken off the streets to be rehabilitated into becoming a better citizen Mandatory Minimum Sentencing.

References

Doyle, C. (2018, January). Mandatory Minimum Sentencing of Federal Drug Offenses. Congressional Research Service, Library of Congress.

Mauer, M. (2019). Long-term sentences: Time to reconsider the scale of punishment. UMKC Law Review, 87 (1), 113-131.

States Where We Are Working | FAMM. FAMM. (2021). Retrieved 18 March 2021, from https://famm.org/our-work/states-where-we-are-working/.