Report to Congress on mandatory minimum penalties

The United States Sentencing Commission has released a Report to Congress: Mandatory Minimum Penalties in the Federal Criminal Justice System. The 645 page report says that the Commission "generally continues to believe that a strong and effective guideline system best serves the purposes of sentencing established by the Sentencing Reform Act of 1984," and also recommends a number of reforms of mandatory sentencing. "While there is a spectrum of views on the Commission regarding mandatory minimum penalties, the Commission unanimously believes that certain mandatory minimum penalties apply too broadly, are excessively severe, and are applied inconsistently across the country."  
An Executive Summary of the report (49 page pdf) is also available.