The recent proposed bipartisan bill known as the First Step Act is a step towards needed criminal justice reform in America. This legislation states it will reduce the mandatory minimum sentences for up to 2,000 people annually. Across party lines, lawmakers seem to agree on altering and eliminating mandatory minimum sentencing laws. The First Step Act will loosen restrictions on certain federal mandatory sentencing laws and give judges more discretion on sentencing decisions. These federal laws have been criticized for years for being used as a blunt tool of the Drug War and restricting a judge’s authority to make proper sentencing decisions.

The Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1986 and the Sentencing Reform Act of 1984 are federal drug laws that provided a foundation of mandatory minimum laws. The Sentencing Reform Act was designed to eliminate the disparity in sentencing due to unguided discretion by providing a sentencing guideline for federal judges. The guidelines presented in the Sentencing Reform Act had introduced the concept of mandatory laws for certain crimes by using near-mandatory qualities. Congress implemented the Sentencing Reform Act under the assumption that Federal judges lacked the wisdom to identify serious drug offenders to punish them appropriately. Sentencing guidelines are judged by criminal history and the severity of the offense. Sentencing guidelines are then determined by categorization by six levels of criminal history and forty separate offense divisions for the intensity of the crime. Once each of these factors are placed on the grid, there is an indication of what the proper sentencing should be given the range of the offense. These guidelines were put in place to give uniform judicial decisions.

Two years after the Sentencing Reform Act, the Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1986 strengthened the guidelines by requiring minimum sentencing for certain crimes. This ensured judges would grant a minimum sentence of five years for drug offenses up to a maximum of forty years to life for larger quantities of drugs. For example, minimum sentencing requirements included drug offenses that involved 5 grams of crack, 500 grams of cocaine, and 1 kilo of heroin. The sentence requirements increase as the amount of substance increases. A ten-year minimum is required for offenses involving 50 grams of crack, 5 kilograms of cocaine, and 1 kilo of heroin. Both the sentencing laws and mandatory sentencing requirements have contributed to the dramatic growth of the federal prison system.

Mandatory minimums have been criticized for years by the citizens they effect, the judges who hand out the sentences, and numerous lawmakers. Mandatory minimums strip away discretionary power from the sentencing judge regardless of individual needs of the offender. Each individual that is prosecuted has a unique set of circumstances that must be addressed to achieve a successful rehabilitation process. The mandatory minimum laws neglect the needs of individual offenders such as drug rehabilitation and mental disability treatment. Not only are these terms of imprisonment way too high, but the drug weight thresholds set by Congress when these laws were enacted were too low to identify true high-level offenders. These laws also restrict plea bargain, so even if a prosecutor wishes to argue a reduced sentence for a plea, they cannot. But overall, the most crucial issue with mandatory minimums is they have led to prison overcrowding. Although these laws were initially put in place to deter drug use with harsh sentences, they have ultimately led to a surge of non-violent drug offenders locked in federal prison with no opportunity to negotiate their case.