This is the Cato Daily Podcast for Monday, September 25th, 2017.

I'm Caleb Brown.

Those who want to continue getting tough on crime with mandatory

minimum sentences should be able to explain the reductions in both crime and

harsh sentencing in many states. Kevin Ring is president of Families Against Mandatory Minimums.

We discussed the available research.

What has been the long-held pitch on behalf of mandatory minimum sentencing.

It's not, it's got to be, we're going to send a signal to criminals not to do these much worse crimes as we've defined as a special category that are deserving

of these of taking away judicial discretion and presumably getting these people off the streets for a longer period of time is beneficial to society.

And what is the social science research say about that?

Yeah, I mean the premise behind Man-Termotums is twofold.

One is more incarceration is a good thing. It'll help us reduce... Yeah, I mean the premise behind mandatory minimums is twofold.

One is more incarceration is a good thing.

It'll help us reduce crime.

And two, we can't rely on soft-headed judges

to send people away.

And so we need, as politicians, to set a minimum sentence for everybody.

So that's the premise, but it is really focused on that first part, I think, which is that incarceration

is the key to reducing crime.

We now have data over 30 years, much longer than that actually, that show a very loose tenuous

connection between incarceration rates and crime rates.

And there's a new report out that just addresses that issue and talks about what's happened even in the last 15 years.

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