Mandatory Minimum Sentencing

The second piece by Rachel Barkow, looks at the eight amendment of the Constitution and how it might relate to the current problem of imprisonment in the U.S. Despite the repeated claims to being the land of the free, the U.S. leads the rest of the world in the number of people in prison, which as she points out is made up of significantly larger portions of minority groups in the country. Certainly the profit motive is still alive and well at least, because running prisons has become a profitable industry as of late, led by corporations like the Corrections Corporation of America (CCA) which also lobbys the government for longer prison terms and less leniency, not because it feels threatened by criminals, but because shorter prison terms would mean less business. The U.S. is also the third largest in terms of the number of executions carried out by the justice system behind only Saudi Arabia and China.

The reason I chose this section is because as a substance abuse counselor I personally know many people who have suffered long sentences due to mandatory minimums which have done no good and in many cases have done a great deal of damage and it my strong belief that mandatory minimums need to be abolished and that the entire prison system needs to be completely revamped. Mandatory minimums do not do any good for anyone except for the prison system itself whether public or privatized; it has become nothing more than a very profitable business with little or no regard for rehabilitating people.

In New York State the prison system is most often referred to by the acronym DOCS, which translates to Department of Correctional Services. But this name is little more than a sad joke since there is little if anything at all that justifies the prison system as being correctional in any way.  If you wanted to be more accurate it would simply be called the Department of Detention because that is really all they do. Few if any come out of the prison system as better people and of those incarcerated the longer the sentence the less likely they will be better suited for society because they have become institutionalized and no longer know how to function in the outside world.

The United States currently imprisons more people per capita than any other country in the world.  Although US citizens make up only about five percent of the world’s population we currently house more than twenty percent of the world’s prisoners, the majority of those being people of color. (Slate.com 2010).

In addition to the record number of incarcerations is the number of people who are imprisoned for incredibly long and unjustifiable periods of time for what are indisputably minor infractions, many of these involving drug sales or possession. This leads to the statute of mandatory minimums.  It is unfathomable to me as to how this concept makes any sense at all. The whole idea of having a judge hear a case is so that should the jury find a person guilty, or in the case of trial by judge, if the judge deems someone guilty of what he has been accused then he should have the ability to lean on his good sense and experienced, guided by prior case law to impose a sentence that he deems appropriate. Having mandatory minimums reduces a judge to little more than a Parking Enforcement Officer – park in front of a fire hydrant you get a $50 ticket.  That PEO doesn’t have the discretion to say “Well the car is only half way into the hydrant area so I’ll make the ticket only $30 dollars, that should be sufficient.” Under the statutes of mandatory minimums a judge has no more ability to decide proper punishment that a PEO.  The whole concept is ludicrous.

One of the best examples of this abuse of power over sentencing is the Rockefeller Drug Laws.  The main idea of these laws was to send drug felons to prison with very lengthy sentences even first time offenders caught with small amounts of narcotics.  The sentences were mandatory and leniency was unacceptable (New York Times).  One example of the outrageousness of these laws was a 45 year old man who was arrested in Jamaica, Queens in 1995.  He was arrested for selling while holding six $10 bags of crack.  For this offense he was sentenced to 12½ to 25 years. The felon himself said that incarceration didn’t help.  Drugs are readily available in prison and you are more focused on day to day survival that you are on changing yourself (NY Times 2009).

In 2009 under Gov. Paterson and the Democratic legislative leaders these laws were amended to restore sentencing discretion to judges especially in lower-level drug possession crimes.  Judges would be allowed to send offenders to treatment programs instead of prison.  This is just one example of how sentencing laws and mandatory minimums have gotten out of hand and how and why this discretion must be returned to judges where it belongs.

One last thing that I would like to address although it was only briefly mentioned in the article is the idea of executions as a form of punishment. As the article states, the US comes in third as far as the number of executions performed, exceeded only by Saudi Arabia and China - Now there is a group we want to be associated with when it comes to how we treat our citizens... In this all I can say that it is my belief that execution is wrong on every level.  No doubt society has a right to protect itself but it does not have the right to be vengeful.  It has the right to punish but it does not have the right to kill. I cannot think of any way to put it more concisely than this.

 

However the greatest danger from factions, Madison thought were "majority factions" (i.e. the poor). Madison is confident that a minority faction can be handled by the mechanisms of popular government, although he assumes people would actually do something and not just sit back passively if a minority was trying to take control or "usurp" authority. Majority factions however have spelt doom for democratic governments since ancient times Madison argues. He believes that the Constitution contains the "cure" for the democratic "disease." He singles out two aspects: representative government and the large size of the state. He identifies these as the major difference between "republican" and "democratic" government. Democracy was kind of a dirty word for many of the founders and they preferred "republic" (Latin for "the people's business") instead. The point he is trying to make is that he believes that voting for representatives from among the "wise property owners" would add stability to the government.

I chose this passage because it really made me think hard about the way today’s government operates and how nearly Utopian it would be if it actually operated the way Madison envisioned it to.

As I read this passage it wasn’t much of a stretch to see how what Madison refers to as “majority factions” for which he used the poor as an example have now morphed into what we refer to as lobbyists who are paid by the rich and powerful, both people and corporations, to sway the vote of our representatives in their favor rather than in the best interest of the people who elected them as their representatives. The first major difference in modern government is that the factions we now need to be concerned about are not the poor but quite opposite, the very rich.  His fear was that these “majority factions” could undermine the power of the government making it no longer representative of all the people but rather just a majority portion of the people.  Today we have “minority factions” doing just this.  It has often been said that money is power and in the case of our government today this couldn’t be truer. Although he believed that representatives being chosen from the “wise property owners,” in other words what we would refer to today as the upper class would be the cure for this problem.  In today’s world this concept has backfired. He felt that if people were elected from the “wise” the more educated, and the people who had money that these same people would do the right thing in representing the population as a whole.  In a perfect world this might be true, but in both the time that Madison believed this and even more so in today’s world this is a very idealistic statement.  People are and always have been more concerned with their own self-interests and in the case of politicians; the interests of the people who get them into office and these people are the minority not the majority.

All we need to do is to look at the politicians who are elected to represent “the people.”  Rarely if ever do the representatives come from the lower or even the middle class.  They come from the people that Madison proposed they would be the upper class, the people who have money because these are the people with the power and connections to raise the money necessary to run a campaign and get elected to office.  Once they are in office they become obligated to the people who got them there; once again the people with the power and the money.  Now it may be true that politicians must, at least to the so extent represent and support the wants of the majority who elected them, or at least give the appearance that this is what they are doing because being a representative is a paying job and these people wish the keep their job and even more so, the power and prestige that comes with it.  However at the same time they are indebted to the powerful people and large corporations who enabled them to win the trust of the majority of the people and thus be elected.

So although Madison’s idealistic idea of a “representative government” and “the large size of the state” do in many ways add to the stability of the government they do not in any way cure the influence of the “majority factions” but instead allows for the formation of “minority factions,” once again the rich and elite to usurp the power of the government.  By allowing lobbyists, who represent a “small faction,” and for rich and powerful people to have so much influence over elections and our representatives; to influence the votes of the representatives who have been duly elected to represent all the people, sway their votes in an effort to support those who got them elected and not truly the majority of the people.  This is certainly not what the founding fathers envisioned as the way our government should operate.

What it Means to be an American

“As long as we thought of Americanism as the “melting pot.” Our American cultural tradition lay in the past.  It was something to which the new Americans were to be moulded. In the light of our changing ideal of Americanism, we must perpetrate that our American cultural tradition lies in the future.  It will be what we all make out of this incomparable opportunity of attacking the future with a new key.”  - Trans-National America, Randolph Bourne

I chose this selection because I felt that in a very brief manner it summed up the notion of what the founder’s thought American culture was supposed to be while just as succinctly pointed out what it is, what direction it is moving in, and what vast opportunities it holds for the future.

When Teddy Roosevelt stated, “We have room for but one language here, and that is the English language, for we intend to see that the crucible turns our people out as Americans, of American nationality, and not as dwellers in a polyglot boarding-house; and we have room for but one soul loyalty and that is loyalty to the American people.”  He said so much in so few words.  He believed in the concept of the “melting pot” a crucible that would “melt” all incoming immigrants into an amalgam and pour them out into molds that would form “Americans.” But one doesn’t have to dig too deep to see the absurdity of this concept from its surface to its core.  It is contradictory to the very nature of this country and should be seen as anathema to both native born “Americans” and to every immigrant that has come to this country especially considering that every single person who has or ever will enjoy the privilege of citizenship in this great nation was at one time an immigrant.

First of all is it our language or our ideals, principals and aspirations that make us Americans?  If we say that it is our language then we must admit failure as a nation.  This country was founded by immigrants who only by default spoke English, men and women who came to this land to break away from the tyranny of the English monarchy and in forming this nation they declared in our Declaration of Independence very eloquently what the basis of this new nation was to be; the concept that all men are created equal and that they are endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights, the greatest among these being life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.  Some years later the Bill of Rights guaranteed other rights that belong to every citizen of this land; the right to speak freely, the right to freedom of religion, the right to assemble and protest against their government and numerous others that are now deeply woven into the fabric that is the basis of this country.  These rights are also promises.  They are promises to every future immigrant coming to this country that these guarantees are something that they can look forward to as citizens and that are the greatest reason that many, if not most people immigrate to this country; the promise of a greater future.

Nowhere in the framework of this land is there any legal delineation that states that if you are to be an American you must forget your spoken language and now speak English, belong to a certain Church, or in any other way meld into a predetermined culture.  This concept is in fact the antithesis of the foundation of what this country is meant to be. This was an idea that come into being by powerful, albeit narrow-minded men who men who forgot that they themselves were immigrants coming to this country steeped in their own ideals and traditions while still seeking the same freedoms and that a great number of immigrants who migrated to this country both in times long past and in even the most recent times risked their very lives to do because they desired to share in these great truths of what it means to be an American.

So America should not be a “melting pot” that turns out all citizens to be the same.  It must be that “polyglot boarding house” that Roosevelt so feared.  I agree with Randolph Bourne when he said, “…we must perpetrate that our American cultural tradition lies in the future.” Having people of different backgrounds and cultures coming together to share ideas and thus continue to complete this work that the founding fathers began, to form a new land where people have the freedom to hold onto and enjoy their cultural heritage while contributing to the basic concept that this is a place where everyone can come together and participate in their government, to form a country and a culture that is unlike and superior to any other in the history of civilization; this is what it truly means to be an American.  Every person who has ever landed upon these shores has done so with the dream of improving their own lot in life and to try to ensure that their children and their children’s children will have an even better life than they do.  This is the true “American Dream” and we must all band together, regardless of our differences and embrace our similarities as people to ensure that this dream continues and see to it that this great, unfinished country continues to grow and prosper and never forget that every citizen has their own individual and unique contribution to make to what it truly means to be an American and to what this country is and is to become.

Americans currently give the federal government and their representatives in Congress very negative reviews.  Americans are dissatisfied with the way the nation is being governed, have low confidence in the legislative branch of government, believe that the government has too much power and the individuals and businesses should be doing more and the government less.

The meaning of this passage is obviously stated in the paragraph.  The American people are unhappy with the way the nation is being governed.  This statement in itself seems too simple.  If they are unhappy then the real question needs to be why this is and what can be done about it.  The answer may be as simple as the question.  I chose this paragraph because of what it made me think about and how important to American life this issue is.  We live in a society where we don’t have to accept a government that we are not happy with and where we have the power to do something about it.

Personally I agree with the sentiment of this paragraph, the government does have too much power and control.  But there are two sides to every coin.  If people believe that business should do more and government less then they need to do more than merely complain about it; they need to do something about it.  The industrial leaders in this country need to step up and take hold of the reigns; to begin running their companies in a way that will benefit not only their own pockets but American society as a whole and they need to do this is ways that are compliant with laws that are in place to protect both the people and the environment.  We have to remember that in this country the power that the government has is given to it by the people that it governs.  We live in a democratic republic, electing people who we feel we can trust to carry out the business of the government in the way which we have elected them to do; no more – no less.

In reading this passage the first thought that went through my mind was to wonder how many of the people who responded to this survey actually took the time to go out and vote for the politicians and thus the system they are now complaining about.  Every person needs to exercise their right, their obligation, to vote in order for the government to be truly representative of all the people.  If people don’t vote then they cower down, giving up their say in how things should be done to the “Notables,” as Dahl referred to them, the people who already hold most of the money and therefore the power, to put into office those who are most likely to carry out the business of the government in ways that are beneficial to their own pocketbooks and to the benefit of those highly influential people and companies who were most effective at getting them elected to the office in which they serve and in doing so giving them as much power as they need to accomplish their agendas.  We have to remember that in this country we have one of the greatest systems of checks and balances possible – elections.  However if you do not participate actively in this system by taking the time to cast your ballot you have forfeited your right to complain about how the government runs, how much power it has and what is or isn’t being done.