The Project observes that the decision to prosecute Dixon with the more serious offense is one that is often made against the interests of minority defendants.

Historicaly, the safeguard against prosecutorial overreaching in charging decisions has been the ability of a judge to impose a sentence that is proportionate to the crime. Mandatory minimum sentences undermine that system of checks and balances.

The most effective and practical way to avoid sentences that are unjustly severe or needlessly harsh is to restore judicial discretion to sentencing. Even where legislators feel that a minimum sentence must be established, sentencing codes and criminal laws could be amended to permit lesser sentences when the statutory mandatory sentence would result in a manifest injustice, where it is being applied to a situation that the legislature could not have anticipated, or where the prosecutor has unreasonably refused to exercise its discretion.

The Sentencing Project also argues that the criminal law is ill-suited as a mechanism for promoting social change by (in this case) punishing individuals for making the same judgments about moral behavior that are commonly made by others, yet that generally go unpunished. In other words, harsh sentencing practices are unlikely to deter teenagers from having sex with each other. The Sentencing Project's analysis offers an insightful look at the many flaws in the unforgiving sentencing philosophies that have flourished in recent years.