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Friday, April 07, 2006
Drugs and crime
The policy of the government over the last 40, 50 or 60 years has been to lock-up people because they use drugs. Politicians run on a platform of locking up all the drug dealers. We blame other countries because they supply drugs to the United States but we can't figure out how to convince people not to use them in the first place. I don't have the answers, I wish I did. Something has to change. Our local prison is overflowing and the US has more people in prison than almost any other industrialized country. The perception is that Wilkes-Barre has become a war zone over drugs. True or not, that is the perception. There has to be another way of dealing with this problem. Our political leaders have to step up and give us some realistic solutions to this problem.
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Blame New York. The Rockefeller Drug Laws were the first crack down on drugs in America (a liberal proposal by the way) and there's been a huge argument brewing here over the fact that someone who has a drug habit is incarcerated for the same amount of time or longer than someone who deals (possession being the key element to the sentence).
Judges have little discretion.
These laws stink to high holy hell, and criminalize people who need help. Fortunately, along the way, mandatory rehab programs were implemented, but there's still the stigma of criminality AND a drug abuse history on the poor soul's record.
Mandatory minimums are a big part of the problem. The 2 Judges I know hate them. Their argument is you can't make the punishment fit the crime.
I concur, mandatory minimums tie the judge's hands.
My basic philosophy is that when we put money into rehab and educating children about drugs it is an ounce of prevention that will be more effective in the long run.
Often I've ponder the arguements about legalizing marijuana for this cause. If we spent less time/money on pot we could crack down on worse and less popular drugs.
Also it would remove the dilema of people who are involved in the war on drugs who are past or current pot smokers.
There is also differentiation among drugs - differing penalties for crack and powder cocaine, and alcohol is legal while other drugs are not. I don't know what the answer is but I agree that mandatory sentences don't help and that more should be spent on rehab, etc.
If our country could come up to some sort of consensus about the rights and responsibilities for each of us for our own body, and apply the laws consistently to that consensus, we might be able to make some headway on policy then. But until then, the problem won't change.
I don't think in ANY way our local crime fighters do enought to combat the drugs in our area. I could go off on this for a while....maybe a longer post gort, or ill write one
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