Mandatory Minimum Drug Sentences

Throwing Away the Key or the Taxpayers' Money?

Jonathan P. Caulkins, C. Peter Rydell, William Schwabe, James Chiesa

ResearchPublished 1997

Laws requiring minimum sentences for certain crimes have become increasingly popular, and the most frequently applied of these mandatory minimums are those pertaining to drug offenders. Proponents and opponents of mandatory minimums generally argue over issues of punishment, deterrence, justice, and fairness. The authors of the current study examine mandatory minimum drug sentences from the viewpoint of cost-effectiveness at achieving such national drug control objectives as reducing cocaine consumption and cocaine-related crime. They conduct their analysis with the help of mathematical models estimating the response of cocaine supply and demand to changes in levels of enforcement and treatment. The authors find that a million dollars spent extending sentences to mandatory minimum lengths would reduce cocaine consumption less than would a million dollars spent on the pre-mandatory-minimum mix of arrests, prosecution, and sentencing. Neither would reduce cocaine consumption or cocaine-related crime as much as spending a million dollars treating heavy users. These conclusions are robust to changes in various assumptions underlying the analysis.

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Document Details

  • Copyright: RAND Corporation
  • Availability: Available
  • Year: 1997
  • Print Format: Paperback
  • Paperback Pages: 224
  • Paperback Price: $40.00
  • Paperback ISBN/EAN: 978-0-8330-2453-4
  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.7249/MR827
  • Document Number: MR-827-DPRC

Citation

RAND Style Manual
Caulkins, Jonathan P., C. Peter Rydell, William Schwabe, and James Chiesa, Mandatory Minimum Drug Sentences: Throwing Away the Key or the Taxpayers' Money? RAND Corporation, MR-827-DPRC, 1997. As of September 20, 2024: https://www.rand.org/pubs/monograph_reports/MR827.html
Chicago Manual of Style
Caulkins, Jonathan P., C. Peter Rydell, William Schwabe, and James Chiesa, Mandatory Minimum Drug Sentences: Throwing Away the Key or the Taxpayers' Money? Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation, 1997. https://www.rand.org/pubs/monograph_reports/MR827.html. Also available in print form.
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This research was supported by a gift from Richard B. Wolf of Richland Mills and by funding from The Ford Foundation. This study was carried out within RAND's Drug Policy Research Center.

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