MANDATORY DRUG SENTENCES FALLING OUT OF FASHION IN U.S.

Ten years ago this spring, Karen Garrison watched as her twin sons
were locked up in prison, for longer than she ever thought possible.

Lamont and Lawrence, then 25, had just graduated from university in
Washington, D.C. They had no prior record. They wanted to become
lawyers. Instead, they were sent to jail for 15 and 19 years apiece,
for conspiring to sell crack cocaine.

The judge had no say in their punishment. Tough, mandatory minimum
sentences, crafted in 1986 at the height of the U.S. war on drugs,
meant the Garrisons would go to prison, without parole, for many years.

After a decade of heartache, and with her sons still serving time,
Karen Garrison has a warning for Canada: "Be careful with these
mandatory minimums -- the punishment doesn't often fit the crime,"
she says. "It can destroy families." In November, the Harper
government introduced legislation to create Canada's first mandatory
minimum sentences for drug trafficking. Bill C-26, now before
Parliament, would automatically send people to jail for fixed terms
of six months to three years for selling even small amounts of
marijuana, cocaine, heroin and other drugs.

Such changes -- Canada currently has no mandatory minimum penalties
for drug crimes -- fly in the face of almost all expert advice,
including two internal reports produced by the Justice Department itself.

From California to Connecticut, state governments are rolling back
mandatory sentences in favour of more nuanced rules allowing
low-level street dealers, for example, or non-violent offenders, to
enter addiction centres instead of prison, or to benefit from early parole.

Mandatory drug penalties have helped turn the U.S. into the world's
leading jailer, with more than 2.3 million people in prison,
according to the International Centre for Prison Studies in London.