Barbara's summary of the effects of the proposed changes in drug laws are inaccurate. Someone would not have to possess 250 grams or sell 50 grams of cocaine(described by Barbara as $50,000/$10,000 worth of crack - the accuracy of Barb's figures which is questionble) to go to jail. These would just be the amounts that would lead to a presumptive prison sentence of 86 months (more than 7 years in prison). Someone with less drugs would still face 4 years in prison.
No they wouldn't. The 1st degree count you're talking about would get plea bargained down to 2nd degree for a start. With the reduced sentences this bill calls for we're looking at a sentence of a year at most. That would probably put our dealer in county jail, but our county jail is full so our dealer gets sentenced to time served and maybe a year's probation. He walks out the courthouse and his next contact with the criminal justice system will be when they find his bullet riddled body or bust him again if he's lucky.
Substantially less drugs
But still more than an addict would need...
would likely lead to a sentence of some time in jail (less than one year) plus probation. Anyone violating probation for any of these offenses would face time in prison.
Again, sentences less than one year tend to be to our county jail, assuming they have space.
More significant is the huge disconnect between the undisputed problems related to drugs in inner cities and Barbara's insistence on sending people to prison for as long as possible.
Jordan, the disconnect is in your support for a bill that will do nothing to send addicts to treatment, but will reward their dealers with little or no prison time if they get busted.
Where is the evidence of a relationship between the problem and the "solution." The current sentencing laws have been on the books for at least 15 years. For larger level drug dealing, the federal government has been sending people to prison for 10, 20, 30 years or life for the past 20 years. Apparently none of these outrageous sentences have alleviated Barbara's complaints about drugs in her neighborhood.
Because few drug dealers have been sentenced under the federal laws.
Time has proven that the knee-jerk reaction of locking up inner-city youngsters and drug addicts and throwing away the key is ineffective (not to mention unjust). Is it not time to try something different?
Jordan, I agree... But the bill we are discussing reduces penalties for manufacture and distribution of quantities of addictive and illegal drugs far larger than an addict would need.
The main reason that the legislative changes have any chance is that the prisons are on the verge of overcrowding. A very high percentage of these innmates are non-violent drug offenders. It costs $20,000 per year to incarcerate people.
And how much did the drug dealer's poster boy, Steven Porter, cost us in the less than a year that he was free to terrorize our streets? And how much are the children he dealt drugs in front of and the women he pimped worth? Steven Porter has had way more than a couple 2nd chances, spent most of his adult life in prison, and is still a dumb street hustler. At age 25, Steven Porter has exceeded the life expectancy of a gang banger by a year largely because we've been nice enough to protect him in prison.
That money could easily cover treatment, education and job training for each drug offender.
But this bill will not divert one cent to such noble uses.
All much more effective solutions than warehousing people in cages.
In the cases of repeat sex offenders and drug dealers that seems to be the accomodations these offenders are choosing by there persistent criminal behavior.
Barbara's comment AND UNDERSTANDING that a motivating factor for lesser sentences being the concern with suburban methamphetamine dealers doing hard prison time like inner-city drug dealers really gets to the racist heart of the matter. The "war on drugs" is really a war on people of color. Most people incarcerated for drugs are Black, Latino, or Native American. As soon as while people start going to prison in large numbers, there is pressure to lighten the sentences.
When all other arguments fail, the drug dealer's defenders play the race card... Personally, I'd like to see meth cookers and dealers given long sentences too because a lot of them are neo nazis.
Preparing for the wide open drug market in Hawthorne,
Dyna Sluyter
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