84%
of
Mandatory
Minimum
Drug
Sentences
in
Massachusetts
Served
by
1st-Time
Offenders
11/13/98
The Boston Globe this week (11/8) reports that it has received figures from the Massachusetts Department of Corrections indicating that 84% of state inmates serving mandatory minimum sentences for drug offenses are first-time offenders. These inmates are serving an average of five years, or, according to The Globe, one year longer than the average sentence for violent offenders. Mandatory minimum sentencing has come under attack in recent years by judges, defense attorneys and justice advocates, because it eliminates the court's ability to take into account the circumstances of a particular case or individual. Further, it has been shown that while high-level drug dealers often have information to trade to prosecutors in exchange for reduced sentences, small-time dealers and users, at the bottom of the supply chain, rarely have information that is of interest to the state. Monica Pratt of Families Against Mandatory Minimums (FAMM) says that the numbers in Massachusetts come as no surprise. "The findings of the report are in line with the findings of a long line of reports on the impact of mandatory minimum sentences" she said. "It is overwhelmingly the lowest level offenders who are caught up in these laws." "A number of states have undertaken to study the impact of these laws and they're all going to find essentially the same thing. The laws simply aren't doing what they were intended to do, they're not reducing the demand for drugs, and they're not slowing the supply of drugs into the country. They're sweeping up the addicts and the bottom rung dealers and the people caught up on the fringes of conspiracies. It's becoming obvious that the biggest impact of these sentencing laws are the enormous cost that they entail to the taxpayers." (Find FAMM online at http://www.famm.org.)
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