Our ‘War on Drugs’: Eugenics Without Surgery?

By Erik Roskes

Blogger Erik Roskes asks, 'Is incarceration addiction is tantamount to eugenics without surgery?'

Saying No to Feel-Good Crime Laws Requires Courage

By Julie Stewart

Politicians on both sides of the aisle are talking over-criminalization--but they must overcome serious roadblocks, says Julie Stewart of Families Against Mandatory Minimums. 

Who Deserves Prison?

Read more of Mark's work at his blog D.A. Confidential.

There has been much talk of closing prisons here in Texas.  The Crime Report covered that issue a week or so ago, and the local paper has also written about it.  From what I've read, the move seems budgetary rather than a result of some philosophical shift, and as I sit down to contemplate the subject a case that came up in court this week seems like a good representation of how I feel.

Several years ago, a couple of guys arrived at a business here in Austin and robbed it at gunpoint, tying up the proprietor, who was terrified beyond belief.  A woman drove the getaway car, but did not go in. They were caught and the gunmen got prison, she got probation. This week, she was before the court because, not for the first time, she’d violated the terms of her probation by using an illegal substance.  Each time, she’d been continued on probation rather than having it revoked and being sent to prison.  Mostly because the violations weren’t that bad, the minimum prison term for her is five years, she has several children, and is pregnant with another. Today, she wept and told the court that she’d smoked weed, yes, but done it because when she smoked the beatings she got from the man she lived with hurt less. A made-up story for sympathy? Sounds like it, except she went to SafePlace (a shelter for abused women) and told them the same thing before being picked up for the probation violation. As frustrated as we might have been with the violation, she bought some sympathy and credibility by her admission, and by her admission that she wanted treatment for her drug use

So it became a stark choice: either she gets prison for a bad act followed by repeated failures to abide by probation conditions, or she is left on probation in the hope that the reasons (or excuses, depending on your perspective) stop.  I think it’s fair to say that most of us (except the defense lawyer, I guess) were tired of excuses, aware of the serious underlying offense, and starting to wonder if it was impossible to make someone take hold of their life and turn it around. But we all agreed, ultimately, that this time prison wasn’t the answer so she was sent to in-patient treatment for her repeated drug use, somewhere she’d be safe from abuse, where she could work on the many issues she obviously has. Make no mistake, she’s on thin ice and knows it, I’m guessing she won’t get any more breaks if she doesn’t get her act together. After all, there’s only so much the state can do when it comes to offering a helping hand. But I think it was the right thing to do, for her, for her children, and also when you look at the cost of imprisoning someone like her. Would prison make her a better member of society when she gets out? Unlikely.  Is she a danger to those around her?  Certainly not, if she takes to the treatment.

I also think that her case is emblematic of how the criminal justice system has been going lately, certainly in my county. Just the other day I ran into a reporter who was gathering information for a story about all the programs running in the county that work to “fix” people, rather than imprison them. Drug courts, DWI courts, all those.

Make no mistake, there are times when people have been offered help, assistance, support, and treatment. Times when we offer mercy and what we see as justice, but they see as weakness. Some people won’t help themselves, they just don’t want to put in the time and the effort.

They don’t seem to realize that life is hard for all of us, we all have to work and make sacrifices. They have, and I’ve seen it, a sense of entitlement and for them leniency is just a way of amassing convictions without prison time. I have no problem with the criminal justice system keeping a hammer in its back pocket for those cases. But in general, as happened this week, I am inclined to think that a few helping hands will fix more problems than prison, and cost us less to boot. A long- and short-term savings, coupled with the salvation, if you will, of individuals has got to be a good thing, right? With prisons closing, perhaps we can make the rehab thing work. One just hopes that those in charge of the purse-strings don’t look for a cut in those other programs, too, because I’m certainly not in favor of opening up the prison doors just to save money, with nothing else to keep our streets safe.  But here’s a quote from the Austin American Statesman’s story:

“Closing prisons? It's absolutely on the table,” said House Corrections Committee Chairman Jim McReynolds, D-Lufkin, whose panel oversees the state-run system of lockups. “As tight as our budget situation looks, we cannot unravel the fledgling system of diversion and treatment programs that are paying big dividends now for the states. And there’s only one other place to look — prison operations.”

So maybe a budget crunch is just what we needed.  I know at 160-odd cases that I’m handling, a wee drop in customers would be more than welcome.

Obama Will Change Drug Policy, But How?

Barack Obama campaigned for president on a platform of change, but how will that apply to drug policy? Not much specific is known now. Clues are likely to emerge in the next few weeks as important administration figures visit Mexico and Obama drug czar nominee Gil Kerlikowske, Seattle police chief, appears at his Senate confirmation hearing.

It is assumed that the president will take a softer line on drug enforcement than did the Bush administration but what that means in practice is yet to be seen. Attorney General Eric Holder gave a hint when he said that federal drug agents no longer would raid medical marijuana dispensaries that were operating in accord with state laws.

Another issue where change seems likely is the more than two-decade-old disparity in sentencing guidelines involving crack and power cocaine. Obama has opposed the 1-100 disparity in power-crack cocaine quantities that trigger a mandatory minimum prison sentence, but it is not clear how that issue will play out in terms of what the new ratio might be, if not 1-1.

On Mexico issues, the administration has signaled that it will do more on the enforcement side, but can that be very effective against powerful cartels and will it do anything about the large demand for illegal drugs in the U.S. that is fueling the border violence?

Eric Sterling of the Criminal Justice Policy Foundation, which contends that the war on drugs has “led to a more efficient drug trade and a hugely profitable drug market,” hopes that the administration will rethink the enforcement-dominated federal drug policy. Sterling would like to see the feds delegate more enforcement to state and local prosecutors, for example. In the meantime, even a “different rhetorical approach” that might be taken by Kerlikowske, “would be dramatic,” Sterling believes.

It's a fair bet that the Obama administration will move to increase treatment and limit enforcement, but how soon anything significant will happen is not known. Drug policy is at best a fourth tier issue behind the economy, health care, and foreign wars, and key personnel moves are far from being made