GOODBYE TO ANTI-DRUG PRISON LAW

State lawmakers have taken a step to restoring
common sense and fairness to Michigan's drug war.

The Legislature approved a package of bills reversing the mandatory
sentencing law for drug offenses. It should be signed by Gov. John
Engler.

The bills, sponsored by Rep. Bill McConico, D-Detroit, give judges the
same latitude in drug cases that they have in handling any other kind
of crime.

While the mandatory sentencing law was supposed to crack down on major
suppliers, its aim was off. Instead, it was small-time carriers and
desperate addicts who were swept up in the net and sent to prison for
a decade or two.

Judges knew that in many of these cases there were extenuating
circumstances that could fairly have been considered to reduce the
sentence. But they had no choice. The law also had a disparate impact
on black families, with the increase in the incarceration rate for
African-Americans 13 times higher than it was for whites.

But after 24 years of experience with this law, even the Prosecuting
Attorneys Association of Michigan, as well as judicial organizations
and family groups, signed on to McConico's bills.

It is probably not coincidental that repeal of the sentencing laws
would come up just as Michigan's prison population has reached the
bursting point. Existing capacity of the prison system is 49,921 and
49,611 individuals are now serving time there.

With the current fiscal condition of the state, any expansion of the
system would be out of the question. Sentence reductions for drug law
offenders, however, would clear out as much as 20 percent of the
prison population and enable the state to actually cut spending in
this area.

Mandatory drug sentencing was adopted with good intentions but with
ineffective and expensive results. It is time for Michigan to return
dispensation of these cases to its judges, where it belongs.