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41 Am. Crim. L. Rev. 1533 (2004)
Women of Circumstance - The Effects of Mandatory Minimum Sentencing on Women Minimally Involved in Drug Crimes

handle is hein.journals/amcrimlr41 and id is 1543 raw text is: WOMEN OF CIRCUMSTANCE - THE EFFECTS OF MANDATORY MINIMUM SENTENCING ON WOMEN MINIMALLY INVOLVED IN DRUG CRIMES Shimica Gaskins* I. INTRODUCTION In recent years, federal courts around the country have seen an emergence of a new type of drug offender-women who are minimally involved in drug crime, but are disparately punished by the existing criminal justice system. These women are the wives, mothers, sisters, daughters, girlfriends, and nieces, who become involved in crime because of their financial dependence on, fear of, or romantic attachment to a male drug trafficker. These women of circumstance find themselves incarcerated and subject to draconian sentences because the men in their lives persuade, force, or trick them into carrying drugs. Between 1980 and 2002, the number of women in state and federal prisons has increased from 12,300 to more than 96,000.1 The number of women incarcerated for drug trafficking reached a record high of 6.8% of all offenders in 2002.2 While these numbers are the product of many factors, the war on drugs together with the enactment of mandatory minimum sentencing guidelines are the two most significant. National mandatory sentencing policies disparately affect women who tend to play marginal roles in drug trafficking crimes by tying sanctions to the quantity of drugs involved in the transaction and limiting judicial discretion in considering prior criminal history and family responsibilities. The concern that criminal drug laws-specifically drug conspiracy laws-have a disparate impact on low-level, non-violent offenders has been discussed only peripherally in legal scholarship. Law review articles have given limited attention to a gendered analysis of drug conspiracy laws.3 In 2000, discussions concerning * Georgetown University Law Center, J.D. expected 2005. The author would like to thank Families Against Mandatory Minimums and my colleagues at the American Criminal Law Review for their support, comments, and assistance. 1. Press Release, The Sentencing Project, Fact Sheet: Women in Prison (June 2003), available at http:// www.sentencingproject.org/pdfs/1032.pdf. 2. Paige M. Harrison & Allen J. Beck, Prisoners in 2002, BUREAU OF JUSTICE STATISTICS (U.S. Dep't of Justice, Washington, DC), July 2003, at 1. 3. See Tracy Huling, Women Drug Couriers: Sentencing Reform Needed for Prisoners of War, A.B.A SEC. CRIM. JUST., Winter 1995, at 14 (discussing effect of Rockefeller drug laws on women drug couriers involved in international drug trade and suggesting that women drug couriers should be a population of particular concern to policy experts examining effects of global war on drugs); Ilene H. Nagel & Barry L. Johnson, The Role of Gender in a Structured Sentencing System: Equal Treatment, Policy Choices, and the Sentencing of Female Offenders Under the United States Sentencing Guidelines, 85 J. CRIM.L. & CRIMINOLOGY 181, 220 (1994) (suggesting that female drug offenders are treated more leniently than similarly situated males); Eda Katherine Tinto, Note, The 1533

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