Sentencing Laws Quotes

For some people, their idea of getting tough is longer suspended sentences.

There is a separation - a very clear separation - between the judiciary, the legal system, and the political system in this country, and that's why Labor has a problem with the issue of mandatory sentencing as a principle.

Three strikes' laws make no sense as policy. They are more about the politicians responding to the people's desire to see their fury at social dysfunction reflected in the law. Our sentences are way too long. We need to look at the war on drugs, which is to say we need to look and this is easier said than done. Once again, politically, not an easy lift at all. Nevertheless, our policy is self-defeating. We're not keeping people from using the substances. We're creating a huge black market, just like we did under prohibition, which attracts all kinds of criminal enterprise.

The thing that happens is that politicians run on tough-on-crime rhetoric. You appeal to the public and say, 'Let's put more money into taller fences, tougher laws, tougher sentencing, handcuffs,' and where does that money come from? Well, immediately, it comes out of all the money needed for corrections.

I agree with President Obama and Attorney General Holder that we need to reform our criminal sentencing laws.

Mandatory minimums have been shown to be discriminatory and waste the taxpayers' money.

Mandatory minimum sentences give no discretion to judges about the amount of time that the person should receive once a guilty verdict is rendered.

Every day, lax sentencing costs lives.

Mandatory minimum sentences give no discretion to judges about the amount of time that the person should receive once a guilty verdict is rendered. Harsh mandatory minimum sentences for drug offenses were passed by Congress in the 1980s as part of the war on drugs and the "get tough" movement, sentences that have helped to fuel our nation's prison boom and have also greatly aggravated racial disparities, particularly in the application of mandatory minimum sentences for crack cocaine.

When you talk about mandatory minimums, it created a lot of unfairness in our sentencing.