Introduction of the Major Drug Trafficking Prosecution Act of 2009
In the 1980s, Congress passed two Anti-Drug Abuse Acts with the goal that federal prosecutors would go after major drug traffickers at the top of the food chain, instead of low-level drug offenders at the bottom. Lengthy mandatory minimum prison sentences were passed for most drug crimes. These mandatory terms are triggered based solely on the type and weight of the drug involved, and, with very few exceptions, the courts cannot sentence below them.
Twenty years later, mandatory drug sentences have utterly failed to achieve Congress's goals.
First, these sentences are not stopping major drug traffickers. Huge quantities of drugs enter our country each year, but in 2005 the majority of crack and powder cocaine offenses, for example, were street-level dealers, mules and lookouts and users, 61.5 percent and 53.1 percent, respectively. Mandatory minimums lock up thousands of small-time sellers and addicts for decades.
Second, mandatory minimums have lengthened drug sentences, creating the need for more prisons and more taxpayer money to pay for them. Before the advent of mandatory sentences, drug offenders served an average of 22 months in prison; by 2004, that average sentence had nearly tripled, to 62 months in prison. Because of mandatory minimums, the federal prison budget has ballooned from $220 million in 1986 to $5.4 billion in 2008.
Longer sentences and more people in prison haven't translated into safer streets. At some point, the effectiveness per dollar in promoting increased public safety will decrease. For example, when crime dropped dramatically between 1992 and 1997, imprisonment was responsible for just 25 percent of that reduction. Seventy five percent was attributed to factors other than incarceration.
Finally, mandatory minimums have a disproportionate impact on African Americans, who comprise 12 percent of the U.S. population and 14 percent of drug users, but 30 percent of all federal drug convictions. African American drug defendants are 20 percent more likely to be sentenced to prison than white drug defendants. African Americans, on average, serve almost as much time in federal prison for a drug offense (58.7 months) as whites do for a violent offense (61.7 months). Much of this disparity is due to the severe penalties for crack cocaine.
The Major Drug Trafficking Prosecution Act of 2009 will help refocus important federal prosecutorial resources to the major drug traffickers instead of low-level offenders and it will provide more discretion to judges by making some long overdue changes to current law: eliminating all mandatory minimum sentences for drug offenses; curbing federal prosecutions of low-level drug offenders; and allowing courts to place drug users on probation or suspend the sentence.
Mandatory minimums have been repealed before. A 2008 report issued by Families Against Mandatory Minimums describes how Congress first enacted mandatory drug sentences in the 1950s, then voted to repeal them in 1970 because they failed to reduce drug trafficking. I would like to refer Members to the report at the following site: https://www.famm.org/Repository/Files/8189
I strongly urge my colleagues to support The Major Drug Trafficking Prosecution Act of 2009.
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