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My reaction to the 3 strikes law is that I don't agree with it. I think people that commit seriuos crime should have 5 chances , i think that is reasonable.

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My reaction to the Mandatory Minimum sentence is that I don't really agree to that law. Because I feel like the judge should be able to give whatever reasonable sentence .

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This law is when a employer have to pay off a debt by doing work. I feel like this didn't impact the incarceration because it kept people out of jail if they just do "make up Work"

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Peonage, also called debt slavery or debt servitude, is a system where an employer compels a worker to pay off a debt with work. Legally, peonage was outlawed by Congress in 1867. However, after Reconstruction, many Southern black men were swept into peonage though different methods, and the system was not completely eradicated until the 1940s.

In some cases, employers advanced workers some pay or initial transportation costs, and workers willingly agreed to work without pay in order to pay it off. Sometimes those debts were quickly paid off, and a fair wage worker/employer relationship established.

In many more cases, however, workers became indebted to planters (through sharecropping loans), merchants (through credit), or company stores (through living expenses). Workers were often unable to re-pay the debt, and found themselves in a continuous work-without-pay cycle.

But the most corrupt and abusive peonage occurred in concert with southern state and county government. In the south, many black men were picked up for minor crimes or on trumped-up charges, and, when faced with staggering fines and court fees, forced to work for a local employer would who pay their fines for them. Southern states also leased their convicts en mass to local industrialists. The paperwork and debt record of individual prisoners was often lost, and these men found themselves trapped in inescapable situations.

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Slavery v. Peonage | Themes | Slavery by Another Name | PBS

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Peonage, also called debt slavery or debt servitude, is a system where an employer compels a worker to pay off a debt with work. Legally, peonage was outlawed by Congress in 1867. However, after Reconstruction, many Southern black men were swept into peonage though different methods, and the system was not completely eradicated until the 1940s.

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The judge can not give people more or less time, they suppose to give you a minimum sentence that is law already. This impacted the incarceration because even if its a small crime you have to do the time is mandatory, the judge wont be able to give you less time.

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Mandatory minimum sentencing laws force a judge to hand down a minimum prison sentence based on the charges a prosecutor brings against a defendant which result in a conviction -- usually a guilty plea. Many states have such laws. These laws take away from a judge the traditional and proper authority to account for the actual circumstances of the crime and the characteristics of the individual defendant when imposing a sentence.

The Federal drug laws, substantially revised by the Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1986, carry very long maximum sentences -- up to 40 years for some quantities, and up to life imprisonment for somewhat larger quantities. Every significant Federal drug offender could get a very long sentence. The Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1986 also required a minimum sentence of 5 years for drug offenses that involved 5 grams of crack, 500 grams of cocaine, 1 kilogram of heroin, 40 grams of a substance with a detectable amount of fentanyl, 5 grams of methamphetamine, 100 kilograms or 100 plants of marijuana, and other drugs (21 U.S.C. 841(b)(1)(B), P.L. 99-570). That law also required a minimum sentence of 10 years for drug offenses that involved 50 grams of crack, 5 kilograms of cocaine, 1 kilogram of heroin, 400 grams of a substance with a detectable amount of fentanyl, 50 grams of methamphetamine, 1000 kilograms or 1000 plants of marijuana, and other drugs.

In essence, Congress abandoned the idea that Federal judges -- appointed by the President and confirmed by the U.S. Senate -- have the wisdom and training to identify the most serious drug offenders and punish them appropriately. That authority had been limited by the Sentencing Reform Act of 1984 which was designed to eliminate the previous widespread disparity in sentencing across the country due to wholly unguided discretion. The Sentencing Reform Act authorized the development of sentencing guidelines for federal judges. For over two decades beginning in 1987, the sentencing guidelines had a near-mandatory quality, and provided for sentences for drug quantities greater than the minimum trigger quantities in the drug statute (21 U.S.C. 841(b)(1)), and provided for sentences longer than the mandatory minimum sentence for that drug. The mandatory minimum drug laws and the sentencing guidelines have contributed to the dramatic growth of the federal prison system which has become the largest prison system in the United States.

Mandatory sentences have the effect of transferring sentencing power from judges to prosecutors. Prosecutors frequently threaten to bring charges carrying long mandatory minimum sentences and longer guidelines sentences. These threats are effective in scaring a defendant to plead guilty in exchange for a reduced sentence and to give up every factual and legal basis for a defense. As a result, every year at least 95 percent of federal drug defendants plead guilty. CJPF is pleased to have worked with the team that produced the movie, Incarcerating US, to reform mandatory minimums, as well as allies such as FAMM - Families Against Mandatory Minimums.

As Assistant Counsel to the House Judiciary Committee from 1979 to 1989, CJPF Executive Director Eric E. Sterling helped the Members of Congress he served to write the federal mandatory minimum sentences for drug (and gun) crimes. He and CJPF now oppose mandatory minimum sentences because they are antithetical to achieving justice in individual cases.

Mandatory minimum sentencing laws have been misused by the Department of Justice because they are very frequently directed against low-level offenders, contrary to the intent of Congress. Combined with sentencing guidelines, most of the sentences that have been imposed by federal judges in the past 30 years have been unjustly long for the conduct and culpability of the defendant. The justice system has been distorted by removing from judges the power to decide the proper sentence in their cases. The sentencing process now involves the rote consideration of a matrix of impersonal data dominated by often irrelevant drug quantities and other circumstances that can be shaped by the prosecutor's charging choices. The elimination of judicial discretion in sentencing has allowed prosecutors to acquire excessive power to impose sentences. Defendants who plan to assert a legal defense (guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution) are threatened by prosecutors that they will inform the court that the defendants are failing to "take responsibility." A finding of failing to take responsibility results in longer sentences. On the other hand, prosecutors negotiate more generously with defendants who can reveal information about other defendants or the location of the hidden proceeds of the crimes. Higher-level offenders with greater knowledge of the details of a criminal organization have the power to manipulate the system by trading what they know for a shorter sentence in contrast to lower-level offenders who have no such knowledge.

Introduction

Mandatory minimum sentencing laws are statutes that require judges to sentence offenders to a specified minimum prison term for a specific crime. For example, a minimum 5-year sentence (up to 40 years) must be imposed for distribution of 5 grams of methamphetamine, only a 5-day supply for a heavy user (see a complete list of federal mandatory minimums here). Mandatory minimums for drug offenses are generally triggered by the weight of the drugs. The weights of every transaction carried out by a defendant, or conspiracy, are totaled. In addition, weights that are boasted about or admitted to are counted as well as weights of drugs actually purchased or seized. The report of a witness or informant, even if not under oath, and easily exaggerated, of some number of transactions, or the size of a sale or shipment, gets counted for determining the weight that can trigger a mandatory minimum or high-level sentencing guideline penalty.

Unlike the complementary system of sentencing guidelines, which now provide a suggested sentence range after a computation of circumstances by the judge (and from which the judge can further deviate or depart from in response to all the circumstances), mandatory minimum laws allow no room for judicial discretion. As a result, each year tens of thousands of low-level state and federal defendants face harsh punishments that are often denounced by the judges forced to impose them at the time of sentencing.

A BLUNT tool of the drug war

Congress and the states have implemented mandatory minimums for a variety of offenses, but they are used especially frequently in drug cases. Federal drug cases usually involve more than one defendant and are often charged as conspiracies. In conspiracies, drug-related mandatory minimum punishments are based on the total weight of drugs of all the transactions all the persons who are part of the conspiracy are alleged to have carried out, and not on the individual defendant's actual level of involvement. Thus, a single-trip drug courier faces the same penalty as the ringleader who arranged all the shipments of the organization. Not only are the terms of imprisonment much too high, but Congress also set the drug weight thresholds too low to identify true high-level offenders that should be the target of federal investigation. For methamphetamine, offenders face a minimum five-year sentence for distribution of five grams, the weight of five Sweet-n-Low(R) packets, when a heavy user might go through a gram in a day. A genuine high-level trafficker arranges multiple shipments of hundreds of kilograms.

In addition, all the non-drug ingedients of a drug shipment are counted in the weight. 500 grams of 50% pure cocaine is counted as 500 grams of cocaine, not 250 grams. A dose of the psychedelic drug LSD might be 50 millionths of a gram -- such a tiny amount, it needs to placed on some kind of carrier such as a small piece of paper which, as light as it is is, weighs much more. A sheet of paper weighs 4 or 5 grams. It could be divided into 100 doses of 50 micrograms each. The distribution of one gram of LSD carries a minimum sentence of 5 years. Therefore the possession with intent to distribute 100 doses of 50 micograms each on a sheet of paper triggers the mandatory minimum even though the total weight of the LSD is .005 grams.

Although Congress passed mandatory minimum laws in 1986 with the directive to the Justice Department to focus on "major drug traffickers," that has not been the case. In its most recent comprehensive study, the U.S. Sentencing Commission reported in 2011 that "high-level" suppliers or importers made up only 10.9% of federal defendants, wholesalers of any amount -- 21.2%, street-level dealers -- 17.2%, and couriers -- 23% sentenced for drug offenses. Only 2.2% were managers or supervisors. The rest of federal drug defendants were other low-level offenders, even marginally-involved friends and family of the accused.

A Waste of Money

Excessively long sentences are not only unjust but extremely expensive and wasteful. In FY 2015, the average cost of incarceration of a federal prisoner was just under $32,000. The federal prison budget has risen from less than $3.7 billion in 2000 and less than $5 billion in 2006 to about $7 billion in 2017. This exceeds the $5.5 billion allocated by the federal government to care for all the homeless people in the U.S. (It was estimated that on a January night in 2014 there were more than half a million homeless people in America's shelters and streets.)

PROSPECTS FOR Reform

Mandatory minimum sentences have persisted for decades despite opposition by citizens and judges. But over the last few years, South Carolina and Rhode Island have eliminated at least some drug mandatory minimums completely, presenting a model for federal reform. CJPF has been educating the public about the need for reform for decades. In the summer of 2015, Criminal Justice Policy Foundation Executive Director Eric E. Sterling called on President Obama to address mandatory minimums during his remaining months in office. While hopes were high for reform to pass in the 114th Congress, President Obama's advocacy was inadequate and no legislation was enacted before Congress adjourned in 2016.

On October 4, 2017, Senator Chuck Grassley, the Chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, with 10 other Senators introduced a new sentencing reform bill, S.1917. Attorney General Jefferson B. Sessions, a career prosecutor before his election to the Senate, has been a prominent defender of mandatory minimum sentences. At the Department of Justice, he has brought into senior leadership others who share his view. Jared Kushner, son-in-law to President Donald Trump, has been meeting with Senators about sentencing reform. The position of the Administration at the end of 2017 on the new sentencing reform legislation has not been announced.

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Mandatory Minimums and Sentencing Reform - CJPF.ORG

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Mandatory minimum sentencing laws force a judge to hand down a minimum prison sentence based on the charges a prosecutor brings against a defendant which result in a conviction -- usually a guilty plea. Many states have such laws.

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Convict Leasing was just another way of keeping slavery around. This impacted the incarceration because the black people could be put in jail very quick and easy for basically anything they did.

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After the Civil War, slavery persisted in the form of convict leasing, a system in which Southern states leased prisoners to private railways, mines, and large plantations. While states profited, prisoners earned no pay and faced inhumane, dangerous, and often deadly work conditions. Thousands of black people were forced into what authors have termed "slavery by another name" until the 1930s.

The Thirteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, ratified in 1865, prohibited slavery and involuntary servitude, but explicitly exempted those convicted of crime. In response, Southern state legislatures quickly passed "Black Codes" - new laws that explicitly applied only to black people and subjected them to criminal prosecution for "offenses" such as loitering, breaking curfew, vagrancy, having weapons, and not carrying proof of employment. Crafted to ensnare black people and return them to chains, these laws were effective; for the first time in U.S. history, many state penal systems held more black prisoners than white - all of whom could be leased for profit.

Industrialization, economic shifts, and political pressure ended widespread convict leasing by World War II, but the Thirteenth Amendment's dangerous loophole still permits the enslavement of prisoners who continue to work without pay in various public and private industries. As recently as 2010, a federal court held that "prisoners have no enforceable right to be paid for their work under the Constitution."

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After the Civil War, slavery persisted in the form of convict leasing, a system in which Southern states leased prisoners to private railways, mines, and large plantations. While states profited, prisoners earned no pay and faced inhumane, dangerous, and often deadly work conditions.

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This made punishment for drugs even worse when this law passed. This impacted the incarceration because people would go to jail if they are caught when little bit of drugs.

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The War on Drugs Begins

Drug use for medicinal and recreational purposes has been happening in the United States since the country's inception. In the 1890s, the popular Sears and Roebuck catalogue included an offer for a syringe and small amount of cocaine for $1.50. (At that time, cocaine use had not yet been outlawed.)

In some states, laws to ban or regulate drugs were passed in the 1800s, and the first congressional act to levy taxes on morphine and opium took place in 1890.

The Smoking Opium Exclusion Act in 1909 banned the possession, importation and use of opium for smoking. However, opium could still be used as a medication. This was the first federal law to ban the non-medical use of a substance, although many states and counties had banned alcohol sales previously.

In 1914, Congress passed the Harrison Act, which regulated and taxed the production, importation, and distribution of opiates and cocaine.

Alcohol prohibition laws quickly followed. In 1919, the 18th Amendment was ratified, banning the manufacture, transportation or sale of intoxicating liquors, ushering in the Prohibition Era. The same year, Congress passed the National Prohibition Act (also known as the Volstead Act), which provided guidelines on how to federally enforce Prohibition.

Prohibition lasted until December, 1933, when the 21st Amendment was ratified, overturning the 18th.

Marijuana Tax Act of 1937

In 1937, the "Marihuana Tax Act" was passed. This federal law placed a tax on the sale of cannabis, hemp, or marijuana.

The Act was introduced by Rep. Robert L. Doughton of North Carolina and was drafted by Harry Anslinger. While the law didn't criminalize the possession or use of marijuana, it included hefty penalties if taxes weren't paid, including a fine of up to $2000 and five years in prison.

Controlled Substances Act

President Richard M. Nixon signed the Controlled Substances Act (CSA) into law in 1970. This statute calls for the regulation of certain drugs and substances.

The CSA outlines five "schedules" used to classify drugs based on their medical application and potential for abuse.

Schedule 1 drugs are considered the most dangerous, as they pose a very high risk for addiction with little evidence of medical benefits. Marijuana, LSD, heroin, MDMA (ecstasy) and other drugs are included on the list of Schedule 1 drugs.

The substances considered least likely to be addictive, such as cough medications with small amounts of codeine, fall into the Schedule 5 category.

Nixon and the War on Drugs

In June 1971, Nixon officially declared a "War on Drugs," stating that drug abuse was "public enemy number one."

A rise in recreational drug use in the 1960s likely led to President Nixon's focus on targeting some types of substance abuse. As part of the War on Drugs initiative, Nixon increased federal funding for drug-control agencies and proposed strict measures, such as mandatory prison sentencing, for drug crimes. He also announced the creation of the Special Action Office for Drug Abuse Prevention (SAODAP), which was headed by Dr. Jerome Jaffe.

Nixon went on to create the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) in 1973. This agency is a special police force committed to targeting illegal drug use and smuggling in the United States.

At the start, the DEA was given 1,470 special agents and a budget of less than $75 million. Today, the agency has nearly 5,000 agents and a budget of $2.03 billion.

Ulterior Motives Behind War on Drugs?

During a 1994 interview, President Nixon's domestic policy chief, John Ehrlichman, provided inside information suggesting that the War on Drugs campaign had ulterior motives, which mainly involved helping Nixon keep his job.

In the interview, conducted by journalist Dan Baum and published in Harper magazine, Ehrlichman explained that the Nixon campaign had two enemies: "the antiwar left and black people." His comments led many to question Nixon's intentions in advocating for drug reform and whether racism played a role.

Ehrlichman was quoted as saying: "We knew we couldn't make it illegal to be either against the war or black, but by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and blacks with heroin, and then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities. We could arrest their leaders, raid their homes, break up their meetings, and vilify them night after night on the evening news. Did we know we were lying about the drugs? Of course, we did."

The 1970s and The War on Drugs

In the mid-1970s, the War on Drugs took a slight hiatus. Between 1973 and 1977, eleven states decriminalized marijuana possession.

Jimmy Carter became president in 1977 after running on a political campaign to decriminalize marijuana. During his first year in office, the Senate Judiciary Committee voted to decriminalize up to one ounce of marijuana.

Say No to Drugs

In the 1980s, President Ronald Reagan reinforced and expanded many of Nixon's War on Drugs policies. In 1984, his wife Nancy Reagan launched the " Just Say No " campaign, which was intended to highlight the dangers of drug use.

President Reagan's refocus on drugs and the passing of severe penalties for drug-related crimes in Congress and state legislatures led to a massive increase in incarcerations for nonviolent drug crimes.

In 1986, Congress passed the Anti-Drug Abuse Act, which established mandatory minimum prison sentences for certain drug offenses. This law was later heavily criticized as having racist ramifications because it allocated longer prison sentences for offenses involving the same amount of crack cocaine (used more often by black Americans) as powder cocaine (used more often by white Americans). Five grams of crack triggered an automatic five-year sentence, while it took 500 grams of powder cocaine to merit the same sentence.

Critics also pointed to data showing that people of color were targeted and arrested on suspicion of drug use at higher rates than whites. Overall, the policies led to a rapid rise in incarcerations for nonviolent drug offenses, from 50,000 in 1980 to 400,000 in 1997. In 2014, nearly half of the 186,000 people serving time in federal prisons in the United States had been incarcerated on drug-related charges, according to the Federal Bureau of Prisons.

A Gradual Dialing Back

Public support for the war on drugs has waned in recent decades. Some Americans and policymakers feel the campaign has been ineffective or has led to racial divide. Between 2009 and 2013, some 40 states took steps to soften their drug laws, lowering penalties and shortening mandatory minimum sentences, according to the Pew Research Center.

In 2010, Congress passed the Fair Sentencing Act (FSA), which reduced the discrepancy between crack and powder cocaine offenses from 100:1 to 18:1.

The recent legalization of marijuana in several states and the District of Columbia has also led to a more tolerant political view on recreational drug use.

Technically, the War on Drugs is still being fought, but with less intensity and publicity than in its early years.

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War on Drugs - Timeline in America, Definition & Facts | HISTORY

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The War on Drugs is a phrase used to refer to a government-led initiative in America that aims to stop illegal drug use, distribution and trade by increasing and enforcing penalties for offenders. The movement started in the 1970s and is still evolving today.

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This is what they called when they abolished slavery. I feel like this didn't impact the incarceration because it will keep some people out of jail.

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Passed by Congress on January 31, 1865, and ratified on December 6, 1865, the 13th amendment abolished slavery in the United States.

The 13th amendment, which formally abolished slavery in the United States, passed the Senate on April 8, 1864, and the House on January 31, 1865. On February 1, 1865, President Abraham Lincoln approved the Joint Resolution of Congress submitting the proposed amendment to the state legislatures. The necessary number of states ratified it by December 6, 1865. The 13th amendment to the United States Constitution provides that "Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction."

In 1863 President Lincoln had issued the Emancipation Proclamation declaring "all persons held as slaves within any State, or designated part of a State, the people whereof shall then be in rebellion against the United States, shall be then, thenceforward, and forever free." Nonetheless, the Emancipation Proclamation did not end slavery in the nation. Lincoln recognized that the Emancipation Proclamation would have to be followed by a constitutional amendment in order to guarantee the abolishment of slavery.

The 13th amendment was passed at the end of the Civil War before the Southern states had been restored to the Union and should have easily passed the Congress. Although the Senate passed it in April 1864, the House did not. At that point, Lincoln took an active role to ensure passage through congress. He insisted that passage of the 13th amendment be added to the Republican Party platform for the upcoming Presidential elections. His efforts met with success when the House passed the bill in January 1865 with a vote of 119-56.

With the adoption of the 13th amendment, the United States found a final constitutional solution to the issue of slavery. The 13th amendment, along with the 14th and 15th, is one of the trio of Civil War amendments that greatly expanded the civil rights of Americans.

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13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution: Abolition of Slavery (1865)

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Passed by Congress on January 31, 1865, and ratified on December 6, 1865, the 13th amendment abolished slavery in the United States. The 13th amendment, which formally abolished slavery in the United States, passed the Senate on April 8, 1864, and the House on January 31, 1865.

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If a felon convict 3 serious crimes they will be eligible for a life sentence. This impacted the incarceration because people could spend their rest of they life in jail.

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California's Three Strikes Sentencing Law - criminal_justice

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California's Three Strikes sentencing law was originally enacted in 1994. The essence of the Three Strikes law was to require a defendant convicted of any new felony, having suffered one prior conviction of a serious felony to be sentenced to state prison for twice the term otherwise provided for the crime.