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Illegal Drugs - Boston Celtic star Len Bias died in June 1986 from a cocaine overdose. House Speaker Tip O'Neill found his home state still reeling with rancor and dismay during the Independence Day Congressional recess that same year. O'Neill became convince that a strong anti-drug, staunch "law and order" legislation passed previous to the upcoming November elections would give his Democratic Party the upper hand in the fall. The Anti-Drug Abuse Act was introduced on Sept. 8, 1986 and signed into law by Republican Ronald Reagan on Oct. 27, 1986. The then president used his signing speech to attempt to steal some of the Democratic thunder by lauding his wife, Nancy, as a "tireless hero in America's war on drugs."
- The Anti-Drug Act 1986 imposed mandatory minimum sentences based on the type and quantity of the specific drug possessed and stripped all discretion from federal judges. Federal prosecutors can however recommend sentence reductions for defendants deemed to have rendered "substantial assistance."
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Federal Police BadgeA drug defendant who provides law enforcement with information that can be used to implicate and convict others in drug trafficking crimes is eligible to obtain a recommendation for amended sentencing. According to U.S. Sentencing Commission, nearly one-third of federal drug criminals convicted between 1993 and 1997 benefited from sentence reductions obtained by providing "substantial assistance" to law enforcement and prosecutors.
The U.S. Sentencing Commission began condemning Mandatory minimum sentences as early as 1991. The report called them unjust and particularly denounced the transfer of judicial authority from impartial judges to prosecutors who have an inherent investment in outcome. In 1994, Congress enacted a law granting relief from mandatory sentencing for certain non-violent first time offenders. - In 1998, the Anti-Drug Abuse Act was amended to make every defendant, even remotely connected to the trafficking of illegal drugs, liable as a conspirator. This amendment in conjunction with the already established mandatory minimum sentences imposed by the anti-Drug Abuse Act 1986 caused prison populations to soar. The Federal Bureau of Prisons reports a 300 percent increase in the number of incarcerated drug offenders between 1986 and 1992.
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The average daily cost of inmate housing was $49.Per the U.S. Department of Justice Special Report, State Prison Expenditures, 2001 the average daily cost of inmate housing was $49. That figure increased 64 percent to 76 dollars daily in only five years, and more than doubled by 2001 to $104 per day per inmate. This represents a total cost of $29.5 billion annually and an increase over 1986 expenditures of $17.8 billion and according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics' January 1999 release, Substance Abuse and Treatment, State and Federal Prisoners, 1997, up to half of America's inmates were intoxicated when they committed their crime. By 2006, the U.S. had the largest prison population in the world, with 750 inmates per 100,000 citizens, at a cost of more than $200 billion annually. Americans pay just over $325 per person, per year to incarcerate the nation's drug abusers.
