I'd like to send this letter by  http://www.promenadedental.com/live-homework-help-free/ essay about myself  So crime went up, right? Not even close. Since the mandatory minimum carve-out, known as the "safety valve," was implemented, roughly 80,000 drug offenders have received shorter sentences, and the crime rate has dropped by 44 percent. Needless to say, a theory that says mandatory sentences reduce crime cannot explain how the crime rate dropped so far and so fast when tens of thousands of drug offenders were spared the full weight of such sentences.