When you talk about mandatory minimums, it created a lot of unfairness in our sentencing.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
Mandatory minimum sentencing has disproportionately affected blacks, Hispanics and others who often don't have the financial means to fight back.
Throughout the 1970s, '80s and '90s, federal mandatory minimum laws were implemented that forced judges to deliver sentences far lengthier than they would have if allowed to use their own discretion. The result has been decades of damage, particularly to young people.
Mandatory sentencing guidelines have become as complicated and detailed as the IRS code!
You pay a price when you have an objective sentencing system. That is, nothing is perfect.
The strictest law sometimes becomes the severest injustice.
Most arguments for instituting or raising a minimum wage are based on fairness and redistribution. Even if workers are getting a competitive wage, many of us are deeply disturbed that some hard-working families still have very little.
People demand a lot of the justice system and they demand things that it can't deliver.
Even without mandatory sentences, judges are still capable of levying tough penalties for serious offenses - and just as in states like Texas that have 'tough on crime' reputations, this can be done without jeopardizing public safety.
When we talk about the minimum wage, we have to ask ourselves what it is that we owe both our workers and employers. I think clearly we owe them fairness.
If we believe in our current penal process, then the penalties imposed by judges and juries should be the only sanctions for one's crime, not the invisible sanctions of the legislature.
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