Reasons For And Against Mandatory Sentencing Essay

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Introduction:
Within recent years, a variety of issues have been proven to be associated with mandatory minimum sentencing laws. With the laws affecting a significant demographic of minorities, issues such as prison overpopulation, unfair judgement and extensive costs involved with prisons and the court have arisen. The concept of mandatory sentencing was originally implemented to ensure that certain criminals served long prison sentences, which would simultaneously punish the criminal and act as a deterrent for people who have the intention of committing similar crimes. Extensive evidence-based research, from Australia and abroad, has proven that the law is ineffective. With the law becoming more of a hassle than
Firstly, mandatory minimum sentencing laws are unfair, and do not allow for equity between cases. They hinder judge discretion, removing their ability to tailo a sentence to the specific facts of the crime, and the criminal. Mandatory sentencing laws do not allow for plea bargains; an agreement between the prosecution and the defence in which the prosecution offers to drop or reduce some charges, or to recommend a certain sentence to the judge in exchange for a plea of guilty or no contest from the defendant. Additionally, mandatory minimum sentencing lead to the imprisonment of non-violent criminals, majority of which whom have committed a drug related crime; leading to prison overcrowding. Mandatory minimum sentencing, as a result of the previous mentioned issues, is also quite costly – in terms of money and its negative effects. Hence, although mandatory minimum sentencing policies have been created for the intended improvement of community safety, it proves to be unfair, costly and ineffective in deterring future
With the price of one person equating to approximately $103.000, annually. The proposed sentencing laws, over four-year government term, would cost a minimum of $1.236 billion. With Queensland having the biggest prison population of any state within Australia, the costs regarding imprisonment of criminals would be much more drastic.
Conclusion:
Hence, mandatory minimum sentencing should be amended to better serve justice for stakeholders - the victims, accuse, judges, government and society – due to its ineffectiveness. This can be accomplished through decreasing mandatory sentencing for non-violent crimes and increasing them for violent crimes. As exemplified previously, rather than having mandatory minimum sentencing laws for crimes, of which are drug-related, which results in prison overcrowding, the laws can be limited to crimes that cause grievous-bodily harm, extreme emotional distress to a foamily or community or crimes that result in substantial costs to a community or individual. This would result in a safer society, and also lessen the costs related to mandatory minimum sentencing. Furthermore, in terms of drug-related crimes, depending on the severity, the costs that imposed on prisons due to overpopulation, could be used to rehabilitate criminals. Additionally, Marginal crimes, such as graffiti, that have mandatory minimum sentencing laws could be exchanged