On Mandatory Minimum Criminal Sentences, Senator Obama Gets It Right

The CNN political ticker reports today that the Republican National Committee is sending out automated telephone calls in battleground states, in which Rudy Giuliani says, “I’m calling for John McCain and the Republican National Committee, because you need to know that Barack Obama opposes mandatory prison sentences for sex offenders, drug dealers, and murderers. It’s true, I read Obama’s words myself.”

As CNN then reports, Senator Obama does not actually advocate lighter sentences or repeal of minimum sentences for violent criminals, but does question mandatory minimum sentences for drug offenders. While Senator Obama in 2003 made a vague statement in favor of abolishing mandatory minimum sentences—without any references to sex offenders or murderers—he explained his position clearly in 2004:

I think it’s time we also took a hard look at the wisdom of locking up some first-time, non-violent drug users for decades. Someone once said that ‘…long minimum sentences for first-time users may not be the best way to occupy jail space and-or heal people from their disease.’ That someone was George W. Bush—six years ago. I don’t say this very often, but I agree with the president. The difference is, he hasn’t done anything about it.

Senator Obama is rightly recognizes that our society is suffering from its unwise and cruel policy of imposing lengthy minimum sentences on non-violent and low-level drug offenders. And Senator Obama is quite right that the Bush Administration, to its shame, has done little or nothing to change the situation, instead falling back into the same old, unthinking approach of promoting rigid and harsh sentences without full consideration of the nature of the offense or the offender. As I’ve written on the Mirror of Justice in the past, “[t]oo often, and especially at the federal level at least from Washington, D.C., the policy has sometimes appeared to be that every case referred by law enforcement should be prosecuted and every conviction should be emphasized by seeking the maximum sentence.”

My colleague here at the University of St. Thomas School of Law, Nekima Levy-Pounds, has focused her scholarship on this subject, emphasizing that current drug-sentencing practices disparately impact poor women of color and children. As she reports, excessive incarceration of African-American women who had a peripheral role in drug offenses wreak havoc on the family and leave children parentless, setting the stage for the next generation of offenders and another cycle of incarceration. You can read two of her articles on the subject here and here, with another work in progress that will be submitted for publication soon.

The scourge of mandatory minimum sentences for minor offenders can be traced back to precisely the sort of political tactics that areevidenced by Giuliani’s phone message against Obama. Politicians tout mandatory minimum sentences to flex their political muscles and promote themselves with constituents as tough on crime, while politicians who have the courage to challenge mandatory minimum sentences are attacked as weak on crime.

When it comes to highlighting Senator Obama’s appalling and dangerous positions on the sanctity of human life, readers at Mirror of Justice know that I have pulled no punches. But when it comes to criminal justice, Senator Obama’s thoughtful reconsideration of mandatory minimum sentences deserves to be lauded. For what I hope will not be the last time, I say, right on Barack Obama.

Greg Sisk