One of the first lessons I learned as a young prosecutor was also one of the most important: that our success is measured not by the number of people we convict, or the length of the prison sentences we obtain, but by whether justice is done in each and every case.
It’s a lesson I’ve carried with me during my time as a federal prosecutor, as the Bergen County prosecutor, and now as New Jersey’s attorney general. And as I reflected on that lesson, it led me to a simple conclusion: the time has come for our state to eliminate mandatory minimum sentences for non-violent drug offenses.
It’s helpful to understand how we got here. In 1987, at the height of America’s “War on Drugs,” New Jersey followed the lead of other states and enacted laws requiring strict mandatory prison terms for certain drug crimes. Well-intentioned as they may have been, the laws didn’t do a particularly good job of distinguishing between high-level traffickers and street-corner dealers, and over the past three decades, tens of thousands of New Jersey residents have been subject to their broad reach.