Letters: Weak judges require mandatory sentences
The Inquirer's editorial "Let judges be judges" (Saturday) opposes mandatory minimum drug sentences on the spurious basis that they are "nonviolent" crimes, and says that judges should be able to "waive or drastically reduce minimum sentences."
Distributing drugs that result in the physical and mental destruction of their users, and are a major cause of family disintegration, child abuse, and violent crime, is in most people's opinion a crime no less brutal and injurious than mugging.
Mandatory minimum sentences exist, not just for drug offenses but also (e.g. Megan's Law) for child sexual abusers, because too many judges just will not do their jobs. So often we hear that "X has a rap sheet a mile long, going back several years." Instead of punishing these criminals appropriately and taking them off the streets so that they can do no more harm, these "empathetic" judges, unrestrained by minimum sentences, too often let the perpetrators go with ludicrously short sentences, or even no time at all. Then they go out and commit the same crimes.
Nick O'Dell
Phoenixville
