Let the Punishment Fit the Crime Essay

If you cant do the time dont do the crime or how about let the punishment converge the crime. These two statements have been around for years. If any(prenominal)one commits a crime they should be punish but to what extent? Should similar crimes be dealt with the same? such(prenominal) as if a person had a small amount of cannabis for personal use in a car at drill, or they had an ounce of marijuana in their vehicle in a school zone. Should the law treat these incidents the same? Or should they treat these cases differently? any(prenominal) people believe you should be clock time to a mandatory immure term no matter what crime you commit.They feel this will deter people from committing crimes. Others feel criminals are doing too much time for for the most part none violent criminal activity which put a line of business on entire communities. This debate has been brewing for years. Are mandatory negligible sentences doing more harm than good? The movement to establish manda tory lower limit sentences for medicine related offenses began in the early 1950s and gained momentum in the early 1970s (Carrillo, 2000). At this time the judge had the discretion of well-favoured the defendant a mandatory sentence or a more lenient sentence. In 1986 the law was changed were as the judge lost the business office to make a choice in the length of a sentence he or she could impose on an offender.They had to follow strict sentencing guidelines which some judges was even oppose to. The main reason for the mandatory tokenish sentences during the earlier stages in the game was due to the growing drug trade. This was a losing effort by law enforcement to stop the trafficking of drugs into the United States. In the eye of many this obviously didnt work. As time went on the drug trade became bigger and better with more sophisticated technics and more loaded drugs.