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Half in Prison for Nonviolent Drug Possession
“>U.S. Prison Population Sets Record
Who knows the exact percent of people in jail for personal use, but whatever it is is far too large. I think prison should be focused on predators. It seems like a better use of our resources to legalize pot and tax the hell out of it. Then the taxes can subsidize the enforcement.
19 Responses to “Half in Prison for Nonviolent Drug Possession”
Whoops! Until weblink in the post is corrected, weblink can be found here.
Key statastic from story:
From 1995 to 2003, inmates incarcerated in federal prisons for drug offenses have accounted for 49 percent of total prison population growth.
The next time your elected represenative tells you that our prisons are becoming too full and we have to build more, you can tell him/her why.
Welcome to America’s War on Drugs.
This stems from the use of prisons as a means of “rehabilitation through penitence” vs. a place house those awaiting trial – hence the term “penitentiary”. This is something we have our Quaker friends to thank for. It also stems from our desire to extract our pound of flesh from these offenders, and given that we don’t have the lash, or the stocks, to fall back on, locking them up in cages for an extended period of time is about the only option available.
Unfortunately, what this does is take someone who is marginal and basically toss them over the cliff – when they get out of prison their underlying problem (drug addiction) is still with them, and in addition they have been living in a place where “survival of the fittest” is SOP, and criminal skills are the primary curriculum taught. Not really what we thought we were getting when we signed on to the whole “prison as rehabilitation” Kool-Aid wagon, is it?
Even worse – as Paul noted, prison really needs to be reserved for those (predators) who need to be quarantined (isolated) from society – and filling those cells with non-violent offenders (drugged out or otherwise) means they aren’t available to house the really bad guys (and girls.)
~EdT.
I don’t know about “tax the hell out of it” but I certainly agree with the rest of the sentiment.
The War on Drugs makes my head hurt from banging it against the desk. But I’ve said this already. I think. Hard to remember when your brain’s been addled so often.
Legislatures love sin taxes on alcohol, tabacco, Sexually oriented businesses, etc.
It is inevitable that if some drugs were legalized it would be conditional to a very high surcharge.
There are many alternatives to prison when the purpose becomes something other than retributive. The qualifier “violent” could — and arguably should — be driving most incarcerations, not just drugs and other “victimless crimes”.
Marijuana should, indeed, be legal. I never get it why mari is illegal, but alcohol and sigarettes legal. Talking about a double standard.
I never get it why mari is illegal, but alcohol and sigarettes legal. Talking about a double standard.
Uh, could it be because the alcohol and tobacco companies help fund the campaigns of the politicians in office?
American politicians have proven that they’re not against drugs, per se–just drugs that aren’t sold by giant corporations that give them campaign contributions.
nicrivera, you left out the logging and cotton industries that are mega afraid of industrial hemp used for paper, and cloth.
It’s all about lobbying guys, hemp doesn’t have big campaign cash to pad pockets.
I should have worded it more carefully, what i meant was more like “i don’t understand how the public can fall for it”.
I thought this was a moderate forum. Isn’t drug reform an extremist issue? Only those on the far left and far right want to change it. Everybody else just wants to keep their head in the sand. I was at a rally once for the legalization of weed. I heard a guy off in the distance say that it being illegal kept people who smoked away from him. Talk about using a steam roller to crush an ant! Really, law enforcement likes it because they can bust somebody for weed when they can’t make a real case. Also people don’t like legalizing what was previously a crime. It makes them think that society is crumbling beneath their feet. I don’t know what it will take to bring about change. It will have to be big whatever it is. I think the best informed guy out there is Eric Nadelman of the Drug Policy Foundation. He got a lot of money from George Soros to sponsor referendums in the states to make it legal for cancer patients to use it. Sometimes things just have to get worse before they can get better.
Also people don’t like legalizing what was previously a crime. It makes them think that society is crumbling beneath their feet. I don’t know what it will take to bring about change.
I think the process has already begun, with numerous states passing medical marijuana laws, and Nevada putting a measure on the ballot to de-criminalize marijuana entirely. Once federal agencies stop prosecuting people who are using marijuana legally under state law it will only be a matter of time before the mood becomes “it’s legal in states A, B and C and they don’t have any problems, so why not make it legal everywhere?”.
I personally don’t use marijuana, but provided people aren’t driving or acting irresponsibly I’ve got no problem with anyone who does. Also, given current street prices, even with a huge sin tax I suspect that marijuana prices might be cheaper were it legal, so this could potentially become a great revenue source.
Cat said:
LOL!!!!
So… Paul… I meant to say this earlier, but this is one of those planks that I think could fit into a moderate platform.
It is the cost of incarceration and the dubious value of deterrence and rehabilitation that makes me question locking folks up for personal use of weed. My concerns are primarily budgetary and pragmatic. So much money may be better spent elsewhere.
It is not my intention to promote the use of cannabis but rather to acknowledge how inefficient it is to try to stop it.
It seems to me that a Centrist point of view is to objectively look at cost and benefit. This would apply to both ends of the political spectrum from the cost efficiency of public schools to the value of nation building.
Did anyone see Andrew Sullivan’s post “The Trouble with Pot” today? It’s in the context of medical marijuana, and he and his correspondent were saying things that I’m sure will resonate with the people commenting on this post. You should read the whole thing. It’s short, observant, and quite funny, but the funniest line is possibly, “For my part, I find the attempt to ban any naturally growing plant to be an attack on reality.” (And after I read that, I sort of added in my head, without meaning to, “And reality has a well-known liberal bias.”)
If marijuana were legal, I don’t see myself using it recreationally, but I would like to see it entirely legal, and I don’t have a problem with people using it recreationally. Of course, something fair and appropriate would have to be worked out regarding DUI laws, and people would have to decide whether they want minors using it. There’s also the issue of secondhand smoke in public. All of that can be dealt with.
I would like to see people expanding the range of illnesses that could potentially be treated with marijuana. It turns out that I have two conditions that might possibly benefit from marijuana (but nobody’s studied it thoroughly. I only found that out today. (About the pot; I’ve known about both conditions for years.) I was already pro-legalization and pro-research. (Like someone said the other day here: Prohibition worked so well, why not try it with drugs.)
I think Polimom is right that the legal status of marijuana is an issue for moderates and not just people on the fringe. This is especially true when you take into account the subject of this post: that our prisons are full of non-violent drug offenders.
Not at all.
Isadora Driving under the influence of pot is treated just the same as OUIL.
In which case, the only major issues left are whether it should be available for sale to minors (a no brainer, considering current alcohol and tobacco laws – just figure out what age is acceptable) and issues related to second-hand smoke in public places, which is a great deal more complicated.
Rudi, how do they gague whether or not the person is actually under the influence of pot? My understanding was that, since it is fat-soluble, it shows up in urine for weeks. It there a test that can fairly determine cannabis impairment?
legalize all drugs…all of them
make it a health issue, not a legal issue
however, if you do that, my fav show “the wire” will go off the air
It is ironic that those who claim to want lower taxes believe fanatically in policies that force us to spend huge amounts of money and therefore have the taxes to cover it because the states can’t run deficits like the federal government. Keeping those crowded prisons going and building new ones isn’t cheap. Neither is the time in the court system taken by all those drug cases.