Departing Ways: Uniformity, Disparity and Cooperation in Federal Drug Sentences

Authors

Michael A. Simons, St. John's University School of LawFollow

Document Type

Article

Publication Title

Villanova Law Review

Publication Date

2002

Volume

47

First Page

921

Abstract

(Excerpt)

In 1995, this law review sponsored a symposium entitled The Sentencing Controversy: Punishment and Policy in the War Against Drugs. That symposium's focus on sentencing was appropriate because, as one of the participants noted, "[s]entencing is the bottom line of the criminal justice system."  Six years later, as this current symposium makes clear, we are still waging "war" on drugs. And although this symposium is not devoted exclusively to punishment, sentencing is still a central—and vexing—battlefield in that war.

The war on drugs is fought on multiple fronts: education, treatment, interdiction, diplomacy and law enforcement. Law enforcement, however, remains the most visible front in the war-and the one with the most significant practical impact. Each year, over 1.5 million people are arrested for drug offenses. The challenge for drug war policy-makers is what to do with those offenders. In other words, how should they be sentenced? Sentencing is the "bottom-line" in the war on drugs, and for hundreds of thousands of defendants each year, that bottom-line means prison.

Comments

Available at: https://digitalcommons.law.villanova.edu/vlr/vol47/iss4/8/