-Caveat Lector- <A HREF="http://www.ctrl.org/"> </A> -Cui Bono?- Dave Hartley http://www.asheville-computer.com/dave -----Original Message----- From: Neal Peirce [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Monday, February 21, 2000 1:20 PM To: Colleagues: Subject: Prison Reform: A Moment to Seize? NEAL PEIRCE COLUMN For Release Sunday, February 20, 2000 Copyright 2000 Washington Post Writers Group PRISON REFORM: A MOMENT TO SEIZE? By Neal R. Peirce WASHINGTON-If ever there were a golden moment to reform America's prison policy -- 2 million people incarcerated-that time should be now. The economy's booming, creating strong demand for workers, rehabilitated convicts included. Crime rates are dropping rapidly. We're feeling a touch of shame about leading the civilized world in prisoners. It's true, our prisons still hold hundreds of thousands of dangerous individuals, people convicted of quite heinous violent crimes. Even if a handful were wrongly convicted-note the recent concerns about some innocents held on death rows-we're justifiably nervous about premature releases. But behind bars, too, are lots of men (and increasingly women) who were caught possessing or handling small amounts of drugs. Many now face years, often decades, of incarceration for those infractions. In federal prisons, the average drug offender spends more time imprisoned (82.2 months) than rapists (73.3 months). In California, more inmates are doing life-their natural life-for marijuana possession than for murder, rape and robbery combined. Here's a possible reform agenda: * Overhaul sentencing to decide who we're afraid of, and who we're just mad at. Imprison the proven criminals we have reason to fear. Find alternative ways-from halfway houses to community service to drug treatment-to chastise and then treat the rest. Sentencing reform means doing away with the mandatory sentencing, the "three strikes and you're out" laws of the 80s and 90s. Legislatures should write sentencing guidelines focused less on punishment, more on averting future violent crime. Example: letting judges use statistical data that show which types of prisoners respond best to which sentences or treatments. * Reinvent and reinvest in probation and parole. This idea's championed by criminologist John DiIulio, who supported much of the 90s prison build-up. Probation and parole fail, he notes, because officers have unrealistic caseloads and are paid poorly. Recidivism could likely be cut way back by investing adequate funds, cutting caseloads, and then judging various probation and parole practices by their actual effectiveness in stopping repeat crime. * Stop chasing drug addicts. America's massive "war on drugs" is an abysmal failure. Even with multi-billion dollar budgets and military power, it can't interdict more than 1 percent or so of the illegal drugs flowing into the U.S. It can't stop the flow to the streets, where drugs are cheaper than ever. It rarely catches the big dealers; usually it snares small-time operators, very poor people often addicted and personally maladjusted. Then it throws them in the slammer for obscenely long periods of years. Which drugs are truly dangerous, to users and society? Tobacco takes a yearly death toll of 390,000 Americans, alcohol 80,000, cocaine 2,200, heroin 2,000, aspirin 2,000 and marijuana zero (no proven deaths, at least on its own). Combine all illegal drugs and the direct death toll is under 5,000 Americans a year, according to National Institute of Drug Abuse reports. The danger to society isn't the illegal drugs; it's chasing down their users, criminalizing addiction. The last time we had prohibition-against alcohol early in the 20th century-attendant violence, including murders, also hit record highs. * Treat drug addicts-don't make them wait months, years for care as we do now. Studies show people who get treatment are four times less likely to commit another drug crime. Rand Corp. research calculated that spending on treatment reduces serious crime 15 times more than expanding mandatory prison terms. While we've poured billions into new prisons, most drug treatment programs, whether in communities or behind bars, remain woefully underfunded. For the $450,000 it typically costs to arrest, convict and imprison a drug dealer for five years, drug treatment or education can be provided for about 200 people, according to the Drug Reform Coordination Network. We should switch out dollars, to where real results await. * Go after root causes. Why do we have serious crime, drug affliction? Some degree of bestial behavior is a constant among humans. But it's also true, as prison hard-liner DiIulio has noted, that America records 1 million substantiated case of child abuse yearly. Sixteen percent of our children are impoverished, 40 percent are without a father in the home. Neighborhood-, church, school-based programs can help some of these young people, and need much more serious support-like the "settlement houses" for poor families a century ago. Quality community policing can make a difference. Faith-based efforts, including the "restorative justice" programs pushed by Charles Colsen and others, open a window on helping people already caught in crime's web. America could, in short, reduce its crime problem dramatically, just by caring to make the extra effort. What we now know, conclusively, is that more prisons are not the answer. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Get what you deserve with NextCard Visa! 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