MANDATORY MINIMUM SENTENCES KEEP STREETS SAFE

Criminal sentencing has been in the headlines a lot during the past few
weeks, ever since the Supreme Court's Blakely decision put into jeopardy a
system that has dramatically increased the safety of all Americans. Now
there's another threat looming over the tough but fair guidelines that
determine how much time hardened criminals spend in prison, and amazingly
it's being marketed as "smart on crime."

In reality, it's nothing less than a retreat from the fight to ensure our
safety and that of our communities.

Over the past 20 years, Congress has passed tough but fair mandatory
minimum sentences for certain particularly dangerous crimes -- preying
sexually on children, using a gun to commit a violent crime and drug
trafficking -- and for criminals who stubbornly continue breaking laws
despite repeated convictions.

These ensure that the worst criminals stay behind bars for meaningful
periods of time, keeping them off our streets and away from our families,
and making would-be offenders think twice about risking a long prison sentence.

What are the results? Since this common-sense sentencing policy was
created, our families are much safer than they were in previous decades,
and we can see the difference: crime in the United States is at a 30-year
low. Look at it this way: If crime rates had stayed at 1993 levels, more
than 27.5 million extra violent crimes would have been expected. The bottom
line is that tough sentencing works.

That's why mandatory minimum laws repeatedly have been enacted by Congress,
why they are consistently supported by presidents from both parties and why
tough sentencing enjoys widespread public support.

But now some critics are trying to repeal the laws that establish mandatory
minimum sentences. One of them, the American Bar Association, is poised to
demand that state and federal mandatory minimum laws be discarded -- in
other words, that we go back to the failed policies of the high-crime past.
ABA president Dennis Archer says mandatory minimums just aren't cost-effective.

Critics claim that mandatory minimums routinely impose long sentences on
young, low-level offenders. They ignore the fact that Congress long ago
created a "safety valve" provision that exempts low-level, non-violent
offenders without a record from the mandatory minimums. Even offenders who
don't qualify for this safety valve can avoid a mandatory minimum sentence
by helping law enforcement's investigation or prosecution of another offender.

Opponents also argue that "non-violent drug offenders" should be exempted
from mandatory minimum sentences. This disregards the pervasive violence
and harm to society that inevitably accompanies the market for illegal
drugs. Drug trafficking is a leading cause of violence on American streets,
and drug abuse destroys lives. In 1998, for example, 61,000 convicted
inmates -- by their own admission-- had committed their crime to get money
for drugs, and fully a third of state inmates had committed their crime
while on drugs. Drug offenders contribute to violence in a very real way.

Another group trying to turn back the clock on sentencing is Families
Against Mandatory Minimums, which offers as a "profile of injustice" the
nine-year sentence imposed on Leeann Nguyen Downum by the U.S. District
Court in Guam. According to FAMM's Web site, after a flight from Hawaii to
Guam, Downum was caught with a bag containing methamphetamine, which she
was carrying on someone else's behalf.

Downum was prosecuted by the office that I now lead, and FAMM's sympathetic
tale of woe is in some respects false and in others highly misleading.

To begin with, mandatory minimum laws played no role in setting Downum's
sentence. Rather, she received the benefit of the "safety valve" provision
that allowed her to be sentenced below the otherwise-applicable mandatory
minimum. In addition, while she claimed that she had not packed the drug
bag and did not know that it contained drugs, she failed a polygraph
examination on both assertions. This sort of misinformation is typical and
unfortunate.

Mandatory minimum sentences are a critical tool to protect our communities.
We already have experimented with early release for parole, rehabilitation
rather than incarceration, and wide judicial discretion to impose little or
no jail time -- the very policies the ABA and FAMM now advocate. These
policies failed to prevent crimes or promote safer streets in the past.
They would fail again today.

The legacy of mandatory minimum sentences is clear: These tough but fair
sentences are taking habitual lawbreakers off the street, they are locking
up the most dangerous criminals and they are ensuring the safety of
ordinary Americans. We need mandatory minimum sentences, and we must resist
the misguided calls for their repeal. After all, it would hardly be "smart
on crime" to swear off the instruments of America's recent success.