WAR ON DRUGS HURTS TAXPAYERS

I've noticed that in all of your articles about prison overcrowding,
you've never mentioned the overflow of women prisoners who are in
county jails all over the state, waiting to get into the prison which
is already 65 percent over capacity. There are twice as many of us in
these county "holding facilities" as there are beds at the prison.

It costs the taxpayer $40 a day for each person in holding. That
covers room and board and an adult baby sitter. It doesn't include
medical or dental care. Neither does it include any kind of
rehabilitation.

The parole board requires several rehab classes and self-help
seminars before you can parole. None of which are available at these
holding facilities. By the time we get to the prison, there isn't
enough time to complete the classes. The parole board says come back
in six months, as if it were the blink of an eye. Somebody else gets
to sit in holding for another six months, which costs the taxpayers
another $7,300 just to sit waiting. Doing nothing. No one benefits
from this system.

So, who is at fault here? The judges, who irresponsibly sentence
people with minor offenses such as a dirty test to prison? The
Department of Corrections who has watched the trend as female
offenders have increased by 700 percent in the last few years? The
parole board for denying parole to 44 percent of the female inmates
even though they know about the overcrowding? Or could it be
politicians who sold the public on "zero tolerance" without telling
them about the enormous cost to them? After spending billions of
dollars for "the war on drugs," has there been any victory? The big
causalities in the "war" have been the taxpayer.

Jane Shaner,
Bannock County Jail