SENTENCING SENSE

For Drug Cases, Greater Flexibility Would Be More Just

Mandatory minimum sentences for drug offenders have proved to be another
costly failure in the war on drugs.

The idea was good: Get drug kingpins off the street. But what happened far
more often was lower-level dealers, mules and addicts got excessive
sentences, including life, at a big cost to Michigan taxpayers. Meanwhile,
such drugs as heroin and cocaine have become cheaper, purer and easier to
obtain.

Longer sentences have contributed to an expensive rise in Michigan's prison
population, which now runs taxpayers $1.6 billion a year. Roughly 10 percent
of the state's nearly 50,000 inmates are in for drug offenses. Some violent
offenders have shorter sentences than small-time dealers. Faced with budget
crunches, many states are reconsidering mandatory sentencing statutes.

Rep. Bill McConico, D-Detroit, has sponsored two sensible bills that would
enable judges to impose harsh sentences on the shot-callers of a drug
operation, while giving jurists discretion to deal less strictly with
others.

House Bills 5394 and 5395, now before the Criminal Justice Committee, would
replace mandatory minimums with sentencing guidelines, permitting judges to
consider prior convictions, use of a weapon, injury to a victim and other
circumstances. Consecutive, or stacked, sentences would be reserved for
top-level dealers only. The bills also would eliminate mandatory lifetime
probation for the lowest-level offenders.

Repealing mandatory minimums for drug offenses, enacted in 1978, would allow
judges to do what they do with other offenses: tailor the punishment to fit
the crime. One-size-fits-all sentencing serves neither justice nor the
taxpayer.