>I thought mandatory sentencing was mostly related to drug crimes.
>
>On the other hand there's lots of discretion about charging a crime
>and which crime to charge.
>
>Joanna
>
>----- Original Message -----
>From: "Doug Henwood" <dhenwood at panix.com>
>To: lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org
>Sent: Wednesday, September 28, 2011 8:10:48 PM
>Subject: Re: [lbo-talk] Noam Chomsky is losing it
>
>
>On Sep 28, 2011, at 9:50 PM, 123hop at comcast.net wrote:
>
>> think it is a good thing that there is some discretion in
>>sentencing, but then there is the fact that this discretion is
>>often used to penalize brown people more harshly than white people.
>
>Actually there's less discretion than ever. It's all about mandatory
>sentencing now.
Joanna puts her finger on how mandatory sentencing actually operates. Because although the courts have no discretion, the prosecution can still decide who to prosecute and for what crime . Mandatory sentencing merely transfers discretion from courts and judges making decisions in public to police and prosecutors making decisions secretly.
Mandartory sentencing should thus be understood as a police state measure. In the context of a racist society mandatory sentencing facilitates racial discrimination in the criminal justice system in a big way, by allowing the discrimination to be cloaked in secrecy rather than operating blatantly and openly.
Aborigines will be sent to prison for stealing a pencil because that is the law. Whites will not be imprisoned for stealing a pencil because although it is the law that this is the mandatory sentence, the white youth will not be prosecuted and/alternatively will not be convicted of the offense.
Bill Bartlett Bracknell Tas