Mandatory Minimum Sentences

Mandatory minimum sentences are statutory rules that require judges to impose at least a specified prison term for certain offenses. They were greatly expanded during the war on drugs and have been a focus of bipartisan sentencing reform.

Mandatory minimum sentences have existed in American law since the founding, but their modern expansion dates from the war on drugs era of the 1980s. The Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1986, passed after the cocaine-related death of college basketball star Len Bias, imposed mandatory minimum federal sentences for trafficking in specified amounts of various drugs. It also created the notorious 100-to-1 crack-powder cocaine disparity, under which a defendant convicted of trafficking five grams of crack received the same five-year mandatory sentence as someone caught with five hundred grams of powder cocaine. The Armed Career Criminal Act of 1984 mandated long sentences for repeat offenders. State legislatures passed their own mandatory minimums for drug offenses, weapons offenses, and three-strikes laws. The result was a sharp rise in average sentence lengths and a federal prison population that grew nearly eightfold between 1980 and the mid-2000s. Critics argue that mandatory minimums transfer sentencing discretion from judges to prosecutors, who control charging decisions and can effectively dictate outcomes by selecting charges that trigger the minimums. They argue that long sentences for nonviolent drug offenses have done little to reduce drug use while devastating families and communities. Defenders argue that mandatory minimums ensure consistency, deter serious crime, and give prosecutors leverage to obtain cooperation against more dangerous offenders. The Fair Sentencing Act of 2010 reduced the crack-powder disparity from 100-to-1 to 18-to-1. The First Step Act of 2018 further reduced certain federal drug sentences and made earlier reforms retroactive. State-level reforms have followed similar lines. The basic question remains whether the legislature or the judiciary should make the final call on punishment in individual cases.