She pleaded guilty to conspiracy to trafficking 255 kilograms of cocaine. The quantity triggered a minimum 20-year prison sentence. In addition, she pleaded guilty to money laundering and making false statements to federal agents. Smith was a first-time offender and a nonviolent one. No question she did wrong, no question either, for anyone who knows about domestic abuse, that she felt fear.
Drug offenders are the vast majority of new inmates.
The only way to get around the onerous sentences is to trade information to prosecutors. The kingpins have the information to trade. The mules don't. This has all been a boon to the penal industry and to lawyers who defend and prosecute dealers, but it has not made a dent in the availability of drugs or drug use. With billions at stake every year in the drug war, however, it is going to take the hardliners, the ones with impeccable credentials, to reverse strategy.