Against Mandatory Minimums

THERE is a conservative crime-control case to be made for repealing mandatory-minimum drug laws now. That’s a conservative crime-control case, as in a case for promoting public safety, respecting community mores, and reinstating the traditional sentencing prerogatives of criminal-court judges. This is not a libertarian drug-legalization case, as in, “The inherently unethical and hugely expensive Washington-led War on Drugs has failed.” Nor is it a liberal criminal-liberation case: “Most drug offenders behind bars, like most prisoners generally, are helpless, hapless, harmless victims of poverty and racism.” No, it is a conservative case, and I will tell you how I, one of the few academic analysts with a kind word for imprisonment, have come to embrace it.

Where were you on October 3, 1995, the day the OJ. verdict came in? I was in Albany, speaking before law-enforcement officials at a governor’s forum. I concluded my address by arguing that New York, which in the 1970s led the nation in passing stern mandatory-minimum drug laws, should lead it again by repealing them.

About the Author

John J. DiIulio Jr.

John J. DiIulio Jr. is a co-author of American Government: Institutions and Policies, now in its 18th edition.

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THERE is a conservative crime-control case to be made for repealing mandatory-minimum drug laws now. That’s a conservative crime-control case, as in a case for promoting public safety, respecting community mores, and reinstating the traditional sentencing prerogatives of criminal-court judges. This is not a libertarian drug-legalization case, as in, “The inherently unethical and hugely expensive Washington-led War on Drugs has failed.” Nor is it a liberal criminal-liberation case: “Most drug offenders behind bars, like most prisoners generally, are helpless, hapless, harmless victims of poverty and racism.” No, it is a conservative case, and I will tell you how I, one of the few academic analysts with a kind word for imprisonment, have come to embrace it.

Where were you on October 3, 1995, the day the OJ. verdict came in? I was in Albany, speaking before law-enforcement officials at a governor’s forum. I concluded my address by arguing that New York, which in the 1970s led the nation in passing stern mandatory-minimum drug laws, should lead it again by repealing them.