Exactly correct. "Minimum sentences" are like "zero tolerance" policies: they eliminate common sense and critical thinking from the decision making process and that is what's hurting this country the most in every single respect.
As conservatives, we should be pushing to eliminate at least 95% of the things that are considered "Federal crimes" these days.
Why would a group like the International Association of Chiefs of Police give a damn about Federal sentencing reform? They're not in a position of enforcing Federal law in the first place. Their concerns are only relevant in dealing with state criminal statutes.
Its cuts both ways. For every person incarcerated for an extended period of time due to mandatory minimums, there are those who get off free from some liberal judge.
That's the reason mandatory minimums were initiated in the first place.
I think this should be handled at the applet level. To just give judges total opinionated authority in sentencing is a bad idea and gives them even more power than their big heads already have.
Minimum sentences are there because we haven't got consistent judges. Some are way too lenient, and some take bribes.
Zero tolerance for law breakers is common sense, except when we have way too many nit-picky laws, and incarceration as the only punishment.
These things don't eliminate common sense, they are there because judges and lawmakers (in general) have no common sense.
A quick caning is more instructive and less wasteful of life than 6 months in jail. But that common sense has been discarded.
The problem is on the lawmakers side. Change the law. But never ever declare that some laws can be broken with impunity, or all laws become suspect.