; and (2) prohibit participation by any prisoner who has been convicted of a crime of violence (as defined in section 16 of title 18, United States Code). VI Sentencing Reform 6001. Findings Congress makes the following findings: (1) Mandatory minimum sentences are statutorily prescribed terms of imprisonment that automatically attach upon conviction of certain criminal conduct, usually pertaining to drug or firearm offenses. Absent very narrow criteria for relief, a sentencing judge is powerless to mandate a term of imprisonment below the mandatory minimum. Mandatory minimum sentences for drug offenses rely solely upon the weight of the substance as a proxy for the degree of involvement of a defendant’s role. (2) In the Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1986, and at the height of the public outcry over crack cocaine, Congress acted hastily, without sufficient hearings, and enacted hard line penalties that targeted low-level drug offenders. These penalties included new, long mandatory minimum sentences for such offenders. (3) According to the Bureau of Prisons, in 1986, when the new drug law containing lengthy mandatory minimum sentences passed, the prison population was 46,055. Today, the Federal prison population is over 186,094 prisoners, up almost 300 percent in 31 years. (4) According to the Bureau of Prisons, the cost to keep one prisoner in Federal prison for one year is over $31,000. (5) According to the Department of Justice, since the enactment of mandatory minimum sentencing for drug users, the Federal Bureau of Prisons budget increased from $876 million in 1987 to about $7.1 billion in 2017. (6) According to the U.S. Sentencing Commission, between 1995 and 2010, over 400,000 drug offenders were sentenced under Federal law