President Joe Biden's administration took some steps to discourage mandatory minimum sentences. But in other cases, Biden opposed efforts to reduce them, and he did not support or introduce legislation to broadly repeal them on a federal level as promised.
The president has limited authority to affect federal sentencing guidelines, which are set by Congress.
Anti-crime legislation in the 1980s, some of which Biden co-sponsored as a senator, strengthened mandatory minimum sentences for a wide range of crimes. Opponents argue that mandatory minimum sentences don't deter crime and contribute to high prison populations; defenders say the minimums make sentencing more uniform.
U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland issued 2022 memos directing prosecutors to avoid mandatory minimum sentences in some cases.
Garland directed prosecutors to pursue charges that carry mandatory minimum sentences only when the other crimes that a defendant is charged with "would not sufficiently reflect the seriousness of the defendant's criminal conduct" and the danger to the community.
After Garland's guidance, the portion of federal offenders convicted of crimes carrying mandatory minimum sentences fell from 30% in 2021 to 27% in 2023, but both years had a higher percentage of mandatory minimum convictions and sentences than any of the four years before Biden took office.
Biden's Justice Department supported the EQUAL Act that would have removed the sentencing disparity between crack and powder cocaine convictions. The House passed the bill in 2021, but it stalled in the Senate.
The 1986 Anti-Drug Abuse Act, which Biden co-sponsored as a senator, treated crack cocaine far more harshly than powder cocaine, which led to longer sentences for mostly Black defendants. The penalty for selling crack cocaine was equal to selling 100 times the weight in powder cocaine. A 2010 law shrank the sentencing disparity to 18-1.
Biden has taken some steps activists say are counter to his promise. In 2022, the Washington, D.C., City Council passed a law eliminating most mandatory minimum sentences and reducing others. Congress passed a 2023 resolution —which Biden signed — nullifying the city's changes and keeping those mandatory minimums in place.
In a statement at the time, Liz Komar, sentencing reform counsel for the Sentencing Project, said Biden had "abandoned his own campaign promises to oppose mandatory minimum sentences and significantly reduce the prison population." The Sentencing Project is a criminal justice advocacy group that aims to reduce incarceration rates and sentence lengths.
The Biden administration also endorsed a bill that sought to permanently treat all fentanyl-related substances — drugs with chemical structures similar to the synthetic opioid fentanyl — as Schedule 1 drugs. That bill would have introduced or enhanced mandatory minimum sentences for fentanyl-related substances not already in Schedule 1.
Komar told PolitiFact that Biden could relieve mandatory minimum sentences in his final weeks in office through clemency. The president can use the pardon power to commute a person's sentence, which either totally or partially eliminates prison time.
Biden has granted dozens of pardons and commutations to people who had served prison time for drug offenses. He gave blanket pardons to people with federal convictions for marijuana offenses in 2022 and 2023, but Komar said Biden could do more in line with his promise.
"The action the administration has taken around clemency has been very modest and very limited, and so I am hopeful that the administration will take the opportunity to address mandatory minimums with some upcoming grants," Komar said.
Biden's administration took limited actions to reduce mandatory minimum sentences, but those efforts did not have significant effects. And Biden specifically promised to advocate for legislation to repeal mandatory minimums and give states incentives to do so, which he did not do.
We rate this Promise Broken.