Hashishi

The war on drugs and why it's not working
10-9-`07 | ProgressiveU.org

The war on drugs started well before most of us were born. So far, billions have been spent with nothing to show for it besides a record number of people in prison. In fact, 1 in 4 people in prison are there because of a drug offense. Since the start of the war, many things have gotten worse, not better. Just because people are in prison doesn’t necessarily mean the war is working. For example, drug deaths have more than doubled, kids say drugs are easier than ever to get, drug prices are falling steadily and purity has gotten stronger.

Ineffective policies are a major cause of the war’s failure. Our current policies are counterproductive and expensive failures. Mandatory minimum sentences are an example of these ineffective policies. Mandatory minimum sentences are a prison term predetermined by Congress and automatically levied for offenses generally involving drugs or firearms. They are responsible for putting a lot of people in prison. It makes sense on paper, but they’re not accomplishing what they’re established to do. With 20 years to work out the kinks, it’s safe to say they’re not going to work them out.

The mandatory sentences were supposed to target “king pins” and higher level managers in drug distribution networks. The US Sentencing Commission reports that only 5.5 percent of crack-cocaine defendants and 11 percent of all federal drug defendants are high-level drug dealers. These aren’t exactly the most promising numbers after 20 years. The sentences are obviously not targeting the people they were meant to.

The way that mandatory minimums can be reduced, tips the scale of justice even more in favor of the high level dealers. The only way to receive a reduction requires the offender to provide prosecutors with information that leads to the arrest of another offender. Higher level dealers have much more information that they can trade for a reduced sentence. They’re involved in wider aspects of the business, so of course they have more information to trade, and in this game information represents power. Many of the low level offenders, such as drug mules or street dealers, have little or no information to provide. Many have no knowledge of who they work for beyond a street name or a location to drop off the drugs. So, maybe you still think that isn’t that bad. An offender is an offender; they all broke the law, right? The sentences are also discriminatory.

The mandatory minimums are exacerbating racial inequalities in the prison system. An analysis of drug use patterns does not suggest any disproportionalties along racial and ethic lines. Each racial group has a relatively proportionate amount of users compared to their percentage of the total US population. Even though African Americans make up only 14 percent of drug users, they are 35 percent of those arrested for drug possession, 55 percent of those convicted for drug possession and 74 percent of those sentenced to serve jail time for drug possession. It is so skewed that an African American spends more time in jail for a drug conviction than a white person does for a violent conviction.

Nowhere is the racial inequality for African Americans clearer than in regard to the sentencing for crack cocaine offenses. First off, crack is incorrectly perceived as being used predominately by African Americans. Actually, two-thirds of regular crack users are white or Latino. Despite this, 82 percent of defendants sentenced in federal drug cases are African American. The argument that this just means that they’re the ones who are selling it, doesn’t work either. Reports on drug selling show that drug users generally purchase drugs from someone of their own race. Therefore, the African Americans going through the court system reflect racially disparate patterns of law enforcement, rather than merely differential trends in drug abuse.

Not only are African Americans unfairly targeted, they are also treated more harshly for crack cocaine offenses than someone for powder cocaine offenses, or any drug offense for that matter. Under the law, a defendant convicted with 5 grams of crack cocaine would receive the same sentence as a defendant convicted with 500 grams of powder cocaine. But wait, you say, isn’t crack associated with more violence or more addictive? Actually all studies say crack cocaine crimes are no more violent than other drug offenses. It’s not more addictive either, the crack and powder cocaine are pharmacologically identical. In spite of this, the average sentence for crack cocaine offenses is three and a half times longer than a sentence for powder cocaine offenses. Crack is also the only drug to have a mandatory minimum sentence for simple possession.

Both the US Sentencing Commission and the Department of Justice have concluded that mandatory sentences fail to deter crime. They do nothing to eliminate sentencing disparities; instead it shifts the power from judges to prosecutors, who operate without accountability. So why are we still using them? I can see the need of having guidelines, so people who commit similar crimes receive relatively equal punishments. There should be guidelines, but every case is based on different facts and situations. It seems preposterous to not allow a judge to take into consideration each individual as an individual. No case is the same, so why should every punishment be so cookie cutter?

Hold on, hasn’t there been a drop in crime rates in the 1990’s? If there was a drop in crime, it must be due to the fact that the war is working. The war’s stance on harsher and longer incarceration must explain the drop. Since I’m feeling generous, this is where I’ll concede a minor point. Studies have shown that incarceration explains about one-fourth of this drop, but that means that three-quarters of the decline is not due to incarceration. Most of the decline is explained by a relatively strong economy, waning of the crack cocaine epidemic(which began in the early 1990’s), the movement towards community policing, and behavioral changes among young people. Incarceration also only shows this positive result at modest levels, at larger levels, it actually produces an increase in crime.

I’ve highlighted various examples of why I think that drug policies are unsuccessful. I hate when people go on a tirade over why something is wrong, but then give no ideas on how to fix the problem. This is the direction that I think will help to improve the country. There have been numerous studies conducted which have shown treatment is a much more effective method than just incarceration. Tough “lock em up” stances are simply not working. There needs to be a shift from enforcement to treatment. Not only is this more cost effective, there is a reduction in drug use and criminal offending as well. I don’t think that incarceration should be completely cut out of the equation; it should just become part of a package, rather than the whole package.

One method that proves to be working is the creation of drug courts. Drug courts represent a combined system approach to treating offenders. They create a team effort that involves resources from the district attorney’s office, the public defender’s office, and probation and treatment providers, all under the leadership of a judge. Offenders have a choice of participating in the program. If they choose to participate; they work towards having their charges dropped by attending prescribed treatment services, appearing at drug court, and paying program fees. There are three phases of treatment, that last altogether 1 year. As they work through the phases, they attend hearings with the judge, in order to monitor their progress. At the end of the year, if certain conditions are met, they are allowed to graduate from the program. Aftercare is available to all of the graduates.

The drug court saved $1,392 per person compared to traditional court, which translated altogether to a total savings of $9 million. Once the reduction in jail time savings is factored in; they saved a total of $79 million, over a course of 10 years. There was also a reduced recidivism rate that varied depending on the drug court experience of the judges. The average of the reduction in the rate was 30 percent.

The war on drugs is obviously not working in its current state. In order for laws to change, people need to have a voice. Drugs will most likely affect everyone’s life in some way. We need to change things before they become worse.

All of the facts and background information from this article came from the site, The Sentencing Project. The site has a wealth of information on the many different aspects of drug policy, prison effects and countless other issues relating to the justice system. It also has multiple ways that people can get involved in encouraging lawmakers to continue questioning and to reform those policies that are not working.

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elgrande

This analysis by a writer from the"Progressive" is not very progressive.

Buzzby

What errors do you find in his analysis? It all seems pretty valid to me.

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elgrande

His points are fine but have been obvious and made many times before...and I was with him until his endorsement of drug courts. These courts do not distinguish between use and abuse/addiction. They are used to pump up statistics to "prove" that marijuana abusers are seeking treatment at higher rates than ever before. The system is inherently a form of bigotry--drug bigotry. I'm sure there are some poor, or not so poor, souls who need this kind of coercion to stop being a harm to others, but to force any responsible drug user to confess to being an addict in need of curing is Orwellian and not progressive.