The Increased Penalties Act was a bill that increased the penalties for violating prohibition. Enacted on March 2, 1929, it is also called the "Jones-Stalker Act" or the "Jones Act". The legislation was sponsored by two Republicans, Sen. Wesley L. Jones of Washington and Rep. Gale H. Stalker of New York. It stipulated that wherever any penalty was prescribed for the illegal manufacture, sale, transportation, importation, or exportation of intoxicating liquor as defined in the Volstead Act of 1919, the penalty imposed for each such offense should be a fine not to exceed $10,000 or imprisonment not to exceed five years, or both. The Act did not repeal any minimum penalties then prescribed by law. It further declared that it was the intent of Congress that the courts in passing sentence should discriminate between "casual and slight" violations and habitual sales of intoxicating liquor or attempts to commercialize violations of the law.
The bill passed the Senate on February 19, 1929, by a vote of 65 to 18.[1] On February 28 the House passed it by a vote of 283 to 90.[2] President Calvin Coolidge signed the legislation on March 2, 1929.[3]