On Last Week Tonight, John Oliver raises awareness about the horror and injustice of mandatory minimums for drug crimes. Mandatory minimums require fixed prison sentences for certain crimes, and you’ll soon see why we treat some turkeys better than most low-level offenders. Each year two turkeys get pardoned at Thanksgiving, regardless of who is in office, but President Obama has extended the pardons to a total of 89 human beings – a precedent. You’ll meet some of those who weren’t pardoned…Not because they weren’t deserving, but because the sheer numbers of non-violent, first-time offenders serving life sentences is so great.
The injustice is staggering. America got tough on drugs during Reagan’s reign, and continued the War on Drugs through Bush the First and President Clinton. In states with mandatory minimums judges’ hands are tied. They must sentence non-violent, first-time offenders to life in prison, while murderers, rapists and pedophiles receive much more lenient sentences! John illustrates the folly of long prison sentences; “Long prison sentences are not a deterrent to crime. They’re like penises, if used correctly a short one will do the trick.” Oliver hastens to add – ” A rumor I have heard.”
John presses for permanent change: “So existing prisoners can apply for retroactively reduced sentences. Almost everyone agrees mandatory minimum sentences are a mistake.” As John points out; “We cannot have a system where people are continuing to pay for that mistake, and where, perhaps their best chance for getting out of a prison that they should no longer be in, is somehow finding a turkey costume and hanging around the F***ing White House at Thanksgiving!”