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.

Attorney General Merrick Garland told prosecutors in December to promote the equal treatment of crack and powder cocaine offenses and limit the use of mandatory minimum sentences.

These steps are in line with President Joe Biden's campaign promise to eliminate mandatory minimums, although it doesn't go as far as Biden promised. 

In 1970, Congress repealed most drug-related mandatory minimums, focusing instead more on a public health approach to drugs. But then the pendulum swung in the other direction in the 1980s and Congress began passing mandatory minimum sentencing laws including one that Biden co-sponsored as a senator. Supporters say that mandatory minimums provide uniformity in sentences. Opponents say they have contributed to prison overcrowding and take away power from judges. 

"Prosecutors' use of mandatory minimums in over half of all federal cases disproportionately impacts poor people of color and has driven the exponential growth in the federal prison population in recent decades," wrote Alison Siegler, a University of Chicago Law School professor.

Garland issued memos Dec. 16 that call for scaling back mandatory minimums, including for drug crimes. 

Charges that subject a defendant to a mandatory minimum sentence should be reserved for instances in which the remaining charges would not sufficiently reflect the seriousness of the defendant's criminal conduct, danger to the community or harm to victims, Garland wrote. 

But his memo did not call for eliminating mandatory minimum sentences. Garland wrote that some cases will require prosecutors to charge offenses that impose a mandatory minimum sentence "for example, for defendants who have committed or threatened violent crimes, or who have directed others to do so."

In his drug crimes memo, Garland wrote that the Justice Department supports eliminating the crack-to-powder sentencing disparity and supports the EQUAL Act, which would remove that disparity. That House passed the bill in 2021, but the Senate did not vote on it.

As a Delaware senator, Biden co-sponsored the Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1986 that treated crack cocaine, which was ravaging Black communities, far more harshly than powdered cocaine, which was more common among white drug users. Selling 5 grams of crack triggered the same penalty as 500 grams of cocaine powder. That 100-to-1 ratio was reduced to 18-to-1 when Congress in 2010 passed the Fair Sentencing Act.

After controlling for pre-charge case characteristics, prosecutors were nearly twice as likely to bring such a charge against Black defendants, researchers found in an article published in the Yale Law Review in 2013. 

For cases involving crack, Garland told prosecutors they should charge the pertinent statutory quantities that apply to powder cocaine offenses and advocate for a sentence consistent with the guidelines for powder cocaine rather than crack cocaine.

Kevin Ring, president of FAMM (formerly known as Families Against Mandatory Minimums), said anything that reduces reliance on mandatory minimums is a good step.

"The president can't eliminate mandatory minimums — Congress has to do that," Ring said. 

Even if Congress were to eliminate federal mandatory minimums, states can still continue their own mandatory minimum laws. But Ames Grawert, senior counsel at the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University school of law, said the federal government could offer money to states that repeal mandatory minimum laws. 

The Biden administration could also apply clemency to certain groups of convicts. In October, Biden said he would pardon anyone with a federal conviction of simple possession of marijuana, a step toward his promise to decriminalize marijuana. Expanding clemency would let Biden eliminate the effect of mandatory minimums when he can't get a bill through Congress to eliminate them, Grawert said. 

Biden has not eliminated mandatory minimums, but Garland's memos are a step in that direction. We will revisit this promise again during Biden's tenure, but for now, we rate it In the Works.

In his first year in office, President Joe Biden did not push for legislation that would repeal federal mandatory minimum sentences. 

As a candidate, Biden promised major changes to the American criminal justice system that include decriminalizing marijuana and eliminating cash bail, in addition to ending mandatory minimum sentencing. 

So far as president, there has been incremental, administrative progress on mandatory minimums that is far short of what Biden pledged to pursue.

Congress began passing mandatory minimum sentencing laws in the 1980s, including one that Biden co-sponsored. Supporters say that mandatory minimums provide uniformity in sentences. Opponents say they have contributed to prison overcrowding and take away power from judges. 

About a week after Biden took office, Monty Wilkinson, the acting attorney general, issued a memo rescinding a 2017 sentencing directive from President Donald Trump's first attorney general, Jeff Sessions. Sessions instructed prosecutors to charge offenses that carry the most substantial sentences, including mandatory minimum sentences. But Wilkinson's three-paragraph memo, intended as an interim step, didn't do away with mandatory minimums. 

Wilkinson reinstated 2010 guidance issued by Eric Holder, the attorney general under President Barack Obama. Holder's guidance didn't mention "mandatory minimums" specifically, but it said that a federal prosecutor should ordinarily charge "the most serious offense that is consistent with the nature of the defendant's conduct, and that is likely to result in a sustainable conviction" — language that referred to longstanding guidance that predated Holder. 

In 2013, Holder went further and directed prosecutors to avoid charges carrying mandatory minimum sentences for low level, nonviolent drug offenders. Holder said that such sentences "do not promote public safety, deterrence, and rehabilitation."

Attorney General Merrick Garland said during his February 2021 Senate confirmation hearing that he supported Biden's goal to eliminate mandatory minimums and give the sentencing authority to judges.

"We don't have to seek the highest possible offense with the highest possible sentence," Garland said. 

But Garland chose not to reinstate Holder's 2013 policy to avoid mandatory minimums for low-level drug offenders, said Alison Siegler, a law professor and founding director of the Federal Criminal Justice Clinic at the University of Chicago Law School.

"After 20 years defending people charged with federal crimes, I've learned that prosecutors are rarely agents of change," Siegler told PolitiFact by email. "This is unfortunate, because Garland has real power to reduce racialized mass incarceration. He can and should instruct federal prosecutors to refrain from charging and seeking mandatory sentences, especially in drug cases, where popular opposition to mandatory minimums is strongest. Half measures won't be effective; empirical work suggests that the Obama administration's efforts to temper mandatory minimums in drug cases did little to reduce sentences or racial disparities."

Kevin Ring, president of FAMM (formerly known as Families Against Mandatory Minimums), said that Garland could issue a memo that directs prosecutors to use mandatory minimums rarely. "He could put a process in to make it more difficult to seek mandatory minimums and make them the exception, not the rule," Ring said.

The Biden administration may not have pursued eliminating mandatory minimums due to other priorities in his first year in office, set against the backdrop of violent crime spikes in some cities. 

Critics of Biden's lack of progress on criminal justice reform also say that his support for a Trump-era policy on fentanyl-like drugs is also counter to his promise to eliminate mandatory minimums. The Biden administration has supported a policy to categorize fentanyl analogs as a Schedule 1 drug, the strictest classification level.

We will watch to see if Biden takes any steps toward his promise to eliminate mandatory minimums, but for now we rate his progress Stalled.