Mandatory drug sentences 'colossal mistake', Canada told - Politics - CBC News
"An attorney who helped U.S. politicians write mandatory-minimum sentencing laws during the 1980s has a warning for Canadian parliamentarians.
Imposing long jail terms for minor drug offences has been a mistake in the U.S. and won't work in Canada," said Eric E. Sterling, who once served as counsel to the U.S. House Judiciary Committee.
"When you start going down this road of building more prisons and sending people away for long periods of time, and you convince yourself that this is going to deter people you've made a colossal mistake," said Sterling, who is the president of the Maryland-based Criminal Justice Policy Foundation.
"We have learned the hard way that long sentences are not deterring people from selling drugs when the profits are so great."
Sterling is one of 28 current and former law-enforcement officials in the U.S. who have written to Canadian senators, as well as Prime Minister Stephen Harper and the premiers.
They take issue with Bill C-10, known as the Safe Streets and Communities Act, which includes mandatory-minimum sentences for drug offences and is currently being studied in the Senate.
The letter, written by the organization called Law Enforcement Against Prohibition, is the latest salvo in the dispute over Bill C-10, as well as the debate over the legalization of marijuana."
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