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Study: State Too Harsh On Drug Users

Arizona could save $40 million by sending one out of five non-violent inmates addicted to drugs to treatment programs instead of prison, a non-profit advocacy group reported.

That proposal and others advocating prison reform in Arizona were part of a report released Tuesday by Families Against Mandatory Minimums, a Washington, D.C.-based non-profit group that commissioned a study of the state's sentencing laws.

Maricopa County prosecutors hotly rejected the report, which declared the state's justice system broken.

FAMM concluded that Arizona's system of long, mandatory sentences for repeat offenders has cost the state millions, filled prisons with mostly non-violent criminals, disproportionately sanctioned people of color and done little to enhance public safety. The study was embraced by at least two key Arizona legislators who are pushing to revise Arizona's sentencing laws.

"We have a prison system in Arizona packed with low-level, non-violent offenders," FAMM Executive Director Laura Sager said. While Arizona has the highest incarceration rate in the West, "it has had the least success in reducing crime rates of its neighbors."

Sager called on the governor and Legislature to establish a high-level, nonpartisan commission to study and revise Arizona's sentencing laws. In the meantime, the state should give judges the power to set aside mandatory sentences when appropriate. And it should begin reclassifying some low-level offenses to cut back prison time and support more community-based alternatives, such as substance-abuse treatment for drugs, drunken driving and other non-violent offenses.

"We do have a prison crisis in Arizona, not just because of beds but because of how we incarcerate," said Rep. Bill Konopnicki, R-Safford, who leads a House work group studying sentencing reform. "It is time to stop warehousing people, it is time to start treating people and making a difference in their lives."

Barnett Lotstein, special assistant Maricopa County attorney, said County Attorney Rick Romley and his office reject the notion that there is a problem in the state's sentencing system. He called FAMM's report "obviously biased" with the aim of legalizing or decriminalizing drugs.

"We are in favor of mandatory sentences as they exist in Arizona," Lotstein said, adding that they impart consistency. "The people who are in prison, for the most part, deserve to be there."

In its report, FAMM argues that many prisoners incarcerated for low-level, non-violent offenses are there because they commit petty crimes to support their drug habits. Those prisoners would be better served by community-based or residential treatment, which cost less than the average $20,000 a year it costs to keep someone in prison. The report also criticizes the process by which repeat offenders are given much longer "enhanced" sentences. Those enhancements, which cause the prison sentence to be significantly inflated, do not take into consideration whether previous felonies were violent or not, or related to the current offense.

For example, Stanley Holmes, a 45-year-old Mississippi native, was sentenced to 10 years in prison after being arrested for the third time in one year for possessing a small amount of crack cocaine. He received no drug treatment between arrests.

"I think it was way extensive," Holmes told The Republic about the sentence, which he said the Board of Executive Clemency recently recommended be reduced by the governor to three years. "I was not ( to the point ) that I could go back into society, work and maintain my taxpayer, citizen status and use rehabilitation."

FAMM points out in its report that Arizona's sentencing laws also do not distinguish between addicts who sell a small amount of drugs to fund their habit and those who are drug "kingpins."

For example, a drug addict convicted of selling a gram of cocaine with a previous possession charge faces a minimum sentence of 4.5 years. A major drug dealer caught selling a kilo of cocaine faces a minimum sentence of three years.

Lotstein said enhanced sentences are appropriate for repeat offenders like Holmes.

"The community has a right to be protected from people who commit crimes over and over again," he said.

FAMM said it hopes to work closely with state leaders to study and revise Arizona's sentencing policies, as it did recently in Michigan where most mandatory minimum drug statutes were repealed.

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MAP posted-by: Larry Seguin
Pubdate: Wed, 12 May 2004
Source: Arizona Republic (AZ)
Copyright: 2004 The Arizona Republic
Contact: opinions@arizonarepublic.com
Website: http://www.arizonarepublic.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/24
Author: Amanda J. Crawford
Cited: FAMM http://www.famm.org
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?199 (Mandatory Minimum Sentencing)

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Kannibal

Lotstein said enhanced sentences are appropriate for repeat offenders like Holmes.

"The community has a right to be protected from people who commit crimes over and over again," he said.

I don't think anyone from either side would deny that communities have a right to be protected against people who commit crimes over and over.

It looks to me like the argument is about the best way to do that.It don't look like the current system is working all that well.

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Keep the wall of reality and fantasy high enough not to fall over but low enough to see the other side.

cassiusclay

When a person has a problem with drugs and can't get treatment then the deck is stacked and that person is basically shoved into criminality, either by defining all drugs users as criminals or making it impossible for them to get their drug any way but stealing.

It really is mostly about hatred of people who don't fit the system mold of how to behave and how to live. And fear that freedom for "those people" means an end to freedom for "normal" people. If you ain't straight and white you must be up to something is their thinking, something that scares the sh^t outta them.

They really just want to control everything and form society in ways that make it easier for them to continue on their merry way, getting what god gave them, which is basically the whole world in their view. "Decent" people are really the problem.

AlucardOrange3

Cassius, I like your thinking. 'Nuff said about that.

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"When a true genius appears in the world, you shall know him by this sign; that all the dunces are in confederacy against him." Jonathan Swift