Mandatory Minimum Sentencesin Louisiana

Louisiana imposes mandatory minimums for drug offenses, although recent reforms have significantly reduced sentence lengths for many nonviolent offenses. Louisiana’s harshest mandatory minimum is its habitual enhancement, and recent reforms also reduced minimum habitual sentences and created a judicial safety valve. Further, the state’s lack of a felony classification system has exacerbated unequal justice in the state. This results in identical offenses punished in vastly different ways depending on the jurisdiction, creating large disparities in sentencing for the same crimes. Louisiana could improve these policies by eliminating habitual enhancements in most cases, removing mandatory minimums for drug offenses, and adopting a felony classification system that better standardizes sentencing throughout the state.