The Sentencing Project produces short policy document on mandatory minimums

I learned via email this morning that The Sentencing Project has produced this short new document titled “How Mandatory Minimums Perpetuate Mass Incarceration and What to Do About It.”  I was hoping this document might have some new data or analyses about the contribution of mandatory minimums to incarceration levels, but it primarily reviews the standard arguments against mandatory minimums and provides a few anecdotes about some recent reform efforts to reduce or increase use of mandatory minima.  Here is how the document gets started:

Eliminating mandatory minimum sentencing laws is essential to creating a more just and equitable criminal justice system.  Widespread evidence shows that mandatory minimum sentences produce substantial harm with no overall benefit to crime control.  Determined by lawmakers rather than judges, these sentences represent a uniquely American approach to sentencing that has accelerated prison growth.  They constrain judicial discretion, deepen racial disparities in the criminal legal system, and cause far-reaching harm to individuals, families, and communities.

Despite building bipartisan agreement that such sentences are a policy failure, mandatory minimum sentences continue to be promoted as a tool to combat crime, even as the public signals waning support.  This fact sheet identifies the main issues associated with mandatory minimum sentences.  It documents the modest progress toward ending them, as well as efforts to reinstate them, and offers solutions to hasten change that will aid in ending mass incarceration.