TIME TO REVISIT COSTLY POLICY OF LOCKING UP DRUG OFFENDERS

Spending billions in taxpayers' money each year to keep drug offenders
locked up in prison has long been considered a smart investment in public
safety.

So smart, in fact, that the assumption supports a costly incarceration
system in which the number of federal and state drug offenders imprisoned
has surged during the past decade from 40,000 to 453,000. As a result,
prison construction became one of the hot growth industries.

But at a time when state budgets have been hard hit by the recession, a new
study raises questions about the wisdom of some states' prison spending.
According to The Sentencing Project, a group favoring prison alternatives
for drug offenders, three-fourths of the $5 billion a year spent imprisoning
drug convicts goes to confine people who've never committed a violent crime.

A few states have started questioning old anti-drug policies, but too many
others remain wedded to costly past practices that ignore new facts. Based
on Justice Department records and surveys, The Sentencing Project finds
that:

74% of those in state prisons for drug offenses have no convictions for
violence. 27% have been convicted of simple drug possession, not for selling
or even intending to sell. 58% have no history of either violence or
high-level drug dealing. Yet under some state laws, non-violent offenders
are serving 15 years or more at a minimum cost of $50,000 for each new
prison cell and $20,000 a year for each inmate.

The states with the toughest penalties haven't budged from the inflexible
approaches of a generation ago. Back then, as soaring illegal drug use
fanned public fears, the popular notion was that long sentences would scare
people into avoiding drugs. New York, for example, made low-level drug
offenses as serious as rape and manslaughter, good for 15 years to life.
That's still the law, the most severe in the nation.

Slowly, though, more than a dozen states are adopting creative alternatives
that save money. The Sentencing Project suggests a large number of drug
offenders could be candidates for mandatory treatment programs or other
community-based sanctions.

In California, state officials say a voter-initiated law offering
non-violent offenders treatment options has already helped thousands and
saved $6.7 million in prison expenses. The state estimates that every $1
spent on treatment for substance abuse saves $7 in reduced crime and health
costs.

A similar program in Arizona was credited with keeping more than 2,600
people out of costly prison cells in its first year alone.

Encouraged by federal grants, hundreds of communities have established "drug
courts" in the past decade to force offenders into treatment for their
addiction. Initial studies indicate the treatment cuts the number of repeat
offenders by 50% to 90%.

Yet in the current budget crunch, some drug courts are being shut down for
short-term savings. And despite strong public support for lighter sentences
for minor drug offenses -71% in a recent Hart Associates poll - efforts to
tinker with old laws bogged down in partisan posturing this year in a number
of states, including New York.

Fresh thinking on the issue by budget-conscious state politicians can spring
taxpayers from the long sentence of paying the bills for a policy that
serves no one's interest.