Who Are Mandatory Minimum Jail Sentences Helping?

Criminal justice reform is shaping up to be a major transpartisan issue this year, with influential members of both Republican and Democratic Parties recognizing that the current system is broken.

If the goal of the justice system is to protect the innocent, and to maximize peaceful and productive activity within society, it does not take a rocket scientist to observe the ways in which the status quo fails to achieve these goals.

One of the most pressing, and yet most easily corrected, problems with the justice system is the lack of flexibility given to judges to pass sentence on non-violent offenders. Mandatory minimum laws currently dictate that a non-violent drug offender be sentenced to no less than five years for their first offense.