Mandatory minimum sentencing laws have existed since 1951 under the Boggs Act that imposed maximum criminal penalties for violations of the import/export and internal revenue laws related to drugs. The Boggs Act also established mandatory minimum prison sentences. Pursuant to the Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1986, the most recent mandatory minimum law, Congress established basic sentencing levels for crack cocaine offenses. Congress amended 21 U.S.C. §841 to provide for a 100:1 ratio in the quantities of powder and crack cocaine that trigger a mandatory minimum penalty (Yeh and Doyle, 2009).

This dissertation covers the period 1986 through 2005, and examines the impact of mandatory minimum sentencing on poor urban African American women convicted and incarcerated on crack cocaine offenses.¹ There are studies on women in federal and state prisons that provide the number of incarcerated women broken down by race, but there is almost no scholarly studies with information about the challenges faced by these women as told in their own voices upon release from prison. The phenomenological case study is the method used in this investigation to examine the lived experiences of humans. This case study investigates and identifies barriers and challenges that make it difficult for African American women to be successful upon release from prison. Two groups are interviewed in this dissertation: 1) five African American females who are residents of Prince George's County, Maryland, and who have served time in prison for crack cocaine offenses, and 2) seven Prince George's County public officials who work in the criminal justice system.

Agnew's General Strain theory is applied in this research and suggests that people are pressured into crime by negative emotions that result from strains (Agnew, 1992). The Critical Race Feminist Perspective (CRF) is also applied in this dissertation and suggests that this theory is definitive in that its genesis is rooted in critical legal studies and critical race theory (Wing and Willis, 1999). The expansiveness of CRF is evidenced by the utilization of critical race theorists' “technique of storytelling and narrative analysis to construct alternative social realities” (Wing and Willis). Lastly, Mack Jones's A Frame of Reference for Black Politics theory is applied as a paradigm for Black politics. While his theory does not lend itself to gender and class issues, his argument that researchers do not look at the Black political experience for guidance in developing a conceptual model for the experiences of Black people, but rather others, is relevant to this study (Jones, 1972).

This dissertation applies the above three theories that culminates in Chapelle's ACJ perspective to examine the effects of the intersection of race, gender, and class as it relates to African American women sentenced and incarcerated under federal and state mandatory minimum laws.

¹As of 2005, in United States v. Booker, a federal judge may depart from the Guidelines if he or determines that the case is sufficiently unique. This action provides some discretion to judges in sentencing crack and other drug offenders.