Reforming the mandatory minimum sentencing policy Research Proposal

Reforming the mandatory minimum sentencing policy - Research Proposal Example The spread of mandatory minimum penalties for offences together with the great increase in the numbers of people in prison has led to those dealing with criminal justice to re-evaluate this age-old issue. The number of people in US prisons has increased by approximately eight hundred percent since the eighties and this has forced the federal prisons to operate at almost forty percent above their normal capacity (Reamer, 2003). Despite the fact that the US has only 5% of the inhabitants of the world, its prisons hold almost twenty five percent of all the prisoners in the world. There are more than half a million federal prisoners in United States prisons and almost half of all these prisoners have been locked up for crimes that are linked to drugs and abuse of various substance. Furthermore, about nine million more people go through the country’s jails every year while around forty percent of the forty percent of people previous held as federal prisoners and almost sixty percent of those formerly held as state prisoners are arrested again of have their supervision canceled only three years after they leave jail. The mandatory minimum sentencing laws oblige compulsory prison sentences of specific lengths for the individuals who are found guilty of particular federal and state offences. These rigid legislations may appear as quick fix solutions for crime but they destabilize justice through inhibiting judges from giving the punishments to individuals based on the circumstances of their crimes. These laws have resulted in the number of prisoners increasing exponentially and thus leading to overcrowded prisons, unreasonable costs to the taxpayers as well as diversion of funds from other areas such as law enforcement (Cole & Smith, 2013). Most of the sentences under these laws are applicable for crimes associated with drugs; however, they also target other crimes such as specific gun, pornography and economic crimes. The mandatory minimum