Mandatory sentences must be imposed regardless of a person's role in the crime or other mitigating factors. Even then, prosecutors, not judges, determine whether the substantial assistance is valuable enough to warrant a reduction in sentence. Today there are approximately 100 separate federal mandatory minimums located in 60 different criminal statutes. In practice, only four statutes are used with any regularity, all covering drug and weapon offenses. These four statutes, according to U.S. Sentencing Commission data, are responsible for 94 percent of all federal mandatory minimum cases.
Mandatory sentences require offenders to serve their entire sentence without parole.