PROP. 36 ALREADY BEING MISUSED

If passed, the Substance Abuse and Crime Prevention Act of 2000
(Proposition 36) will do just as the name implies. Kudos to Record
columnist Michael Fitzgerald for supporting a change in the system that is
long overdue.

There are some people opposed to Proposition 36 who spout statistics and
reasoning that are misleading, if not untrue. What Eric Dutemple Jr. of
Riverbank obviously fails to realize is that our judges will not be
"stripped of power to incarcerate individuals for noncompliance of drug
treatment conditions." Treatment will be court-ordered as a condition of
probation. Failure to comply would be a violation of probation, a felony in
and of itself that carries the possibility of a county jail or state prison
term. So there will be "accountability and consequences for those who do
not comply with the rules."

It is also not true that "California taxpayers will have to spend $120
million for new drug programs. At least that much will be saved by not
housing, feeding and clothing the 20,000 people currently in state prison
for simple possession of drugs. And at least another $1 billion will be
saved by delaying the construction of new prisons and forestalling the many
paychecks of the extremely high paid personnel needed to staff them.

Prisons were meant for violent criminals, not to be used as part of "the
most successful drug treatment program in California, (drug courts)."

Which brings me to the worst propaganda scare tactic to be used in quite
some time: What do paroled murderers (there hasn't been one since the
1970s) have to do with a person who has a treatable disease?

And "child molesters" are rarely, if ever, drug addicts.

"Violent crimes involving drugs" are still violent crimes, and will be
punished as such. Dutemple also says that drug possessors should have a
fair chance at beating their hideous addiction. Does he feel that's being
done in state prison with no treatment and plenty of illegal drugs to be
had by all?

The only people who could truly be opposed to Proposition 36 are those who
benefit financially from the state's high incarceration rate.

My hope, unlike Dutemple's, is that the Record readers and all citizens of
California will see passage of Proposition 36 not as a turning back of the
clock on justice reform, but as the progressive step forward that it really
will be in savings to taxpayers, in the rehabilitation of human lives --
and in the reduction of crime.

Timothy R. Holloway Sr., Jamestown