Mandatory minimum sentencing laws require judges to automatically impose minimum prison terms for certain crimes. Mississippi has some of the harshest mandatory minimums and the second highest incarceration rate in the US. Mississippi Against Mandatory Minimums is a non-profit seeking to reform these laws by eliminating mandatory minimums for non-violent drug offenses, expanding drug courts, and proposing new legislation. The group argues that mandatory minimums are wasting taxpayer money and crowding prisons without improving public safety, as incarceration rates have increased drastically while drug availability has remained the same.

1. MISSISSIPPI
AGAINST
MANDATORY
MINIMUMS
Thisaffectsyou.@http://msamm.wordpress.com
GETINVOLVED
Whataremandatoryminimums?
Mandatory minimum sentencing laws
require judges to automatically hand out
minimum prison terms to those convicted
of certain crimes. Mississippi has some
of the harshest mandatory minimums
out of all 50 states, and our prisons are
suffering for it. According to the U.S.
Department of Justice, Mississippi has
the nation’s second highest per capita
incarceration rate.
Whatcanyoudo?
MississippiAgainst
MandatoryMinimums
Promoting Justice and Efficiency
in Mississippi
Join us in our fight for reform! Mississippi
Against Mandatory Minimums is a non-
profit committed to proposing legislation
to reform Mississippi’s mandatory
minimum laws. We seek to reform
the current sentencing laws, expand
drug courts, and eliminate mandatory
minimums for all non-violent drug cases.

2. It’syourmoney. It’syoursafety. It’syourcommunity.
Yet the Mississippi Department of
Corrections (MDOC) spent $339 million
of your tax dollars this year, and next
year it plans to spend $368 million.
In fact, state corrections spending is
growing faster than that for education,
transportation, and everything else
except Medicaid.
If automatic laws, not qualified judges,
are putting prisoners behind bars, how
can we be sure that our tax dollars are
being put to good use?
For all the money we’re spending on
them, prisons aren’t making our streets
safer or better. The number of prisoners
behind bars for drug crimes has
increased tenfold from 50,000 in 1980 to
500,000 today, yet cocaine, heroin, and
other illegal drugs are just as available
today as they were in 1980, and often
even at lower prices.
Social scientists believe that the prison
system is now so saturated that the
net effect on communities is starting
to become decidedly negative. In their
words, it’s becoming “crimogenic.”
“Our states are in trouble and no
amount of budget gimmicks, political
posturing or hiding bills will fix the
massive debt that they face.”
– Bob Williams,
President of State Budget Solutions
“Today, my guess is that the costs
outweigh the benefits at the margins.
I think we should be shrinking the
prison population by at least one-
third.”
– Steven D. Levitt, University of Chicago
economist and co-author of Freakonomics
Crimogenic (adj.) – “creating more
crime over the long term by harming
the social fabric in communities
and permanently damaging the
economic prospets of prisoners as
well as their families.”