THROWING AWAY THE KEY

Mandatory Sentencing For Drug Crimes Produces The Opposite Of Its Intended
Effect: More Crime And Violence

SINCE THE WAR ON DRUGS BEGAN in the early 1980s, the American prison
population has more than quadrupled. This explosion has occurred despite
fairly stable drug use and plummeting violent crime over the last decade. To
blame are federal and state laws designed to combat drug use with mandatory
sentences for narcotic crimes. Politicians of all stripes eager to appear
tough on crime have adopted a circular argument to justify filling up
America's cell beds: lock up all the offenders, they say, and the crime rate
will go down.

Political sentiment on this issue has been virtually unanimous. The New York
legislature passed the first of these laws in the mid 1970s in response to
the more draconian ones called for by then-Gov. Nelson Rockefeller, and they
set in motion a tidal wave of get-tough-on-drugs laws, followed soon by the
famous three-strikes laws in California and other states. Overwhelming
majorities passed the laws in almost all cases-truly an area of bipartisan
agreement. The lawmakers and voters must not have actually read these bills,
because many reacted with shock to the provisions of such poorly written
codes, once they went into effect. Horror stories abound: people stealing
pizza, possessing a few ounces of marijuana, or transporting crack cocaine
at the coercion of an inner city drug dealer find that because of prior drug
offenses, or even white collar crimes, they now face 25 years to life in
prison.

What's more, the force of these laws fall most heavily on the nation's poor
and minority populations. Most inmates convicted of drug crimes are
illiterate, unskilled, and subsist on incomes far below the average
American's. When the son or daughter of a wealthy family is caught with a
joint in a dorm room, it is chalked up to "youthful indiscretion." When a
20-year-old inner city Latino with no high school education is arrested for
a similar crime, he can count on spending the next five to 10 years of his
life behind bars. Consider: one in 14 black men in this country are
currently incarcerated, and one in four will be at some point in their
lives. Harvard Government Professor Michael Sandel has noted that if the
prison population of the United States is factored into the unemployment
rate, our jobless numbers would be substantially higher-in line with the
likes of France. In a way, the hard-liners are correct-with everyone behind
bars, drug crimes will be reduced.

This solution is ultimately unacceptable because of the perverse results
that come about because of it. Incarcerating casual marijuana smokers for
five years in overcrowded maximum-security facilities will not make them
reflect on their mistakes, only to reemerge into society ready to
contribute. Instead, exposing them to hardened, violent criminals will teach
them that power comes only from intimidation, that only fear ensures
survival, and that trust ends on the bloody end of a hand-carved contraband
knife. In short, mandatory sentencing distills the rage of the most
efficient and least reformable criminal elements in society. Many small drug
criminals are released only to commit more violent, more disruptive crimes.
Some will spend all but a few years of the rest of their lives behind bars.

Most lawmakers know these facts, but they are trapped. They are trapped by
affluent suburban constituencies who demand that they be tough on crime at
all costs-as long as large contributions in election season ensure that
their sons and daughters can evade prison sentences. They are caught in the
middle by a media that demands tougher laws and then cries foul when it
finds a pizza thief serving a life sentence. And they are backed against the
wall by members of the opposite party, who will descend like vultures to
feed on the doomed carcass of a politician deemed soft on crime.

Today, conservatives and liberals agree on this issue-The National Review
and The New Republic both published articles against mandatory sentencing in
the last year. Nevertheless, candidates, desperate to appear tough on crime,
are grasping at ways to be even tougher: Al Gore has even suggested that
crimes committed in the presence of children be subject to tougher
sentences. Meanwhile, billions of dollars will be needed in the next decade
to house all the offenders who will be going to prison for the first,
second, third time. If incarcerating two million Americans is the collateral
damage of winning the war on drugs, it's time we declare a cease fire.

Index for the Harvard Political Review's series:

"Smoke and Mirrors - America's Drug War"

The Thirty Years' War - (Part 1 of a 10 part series)
http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v00/n1084/a03.html

Editorial: From The Editor - (Part 2 of a 10 part series)
http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v00/n1084/a02.html

The Experts Speak Out - (Part 3 of a 10 part series)
http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v00/n1084/a05.html

Keep It Real - (Part 4 of a 10 part series)
http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v00/n1084/a04.html

The Colombian Conundrum - (Part 5 of a 10 part series)
http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v00/n1084/a06.html

Demystifying the Dutch - (Part 6 of a 10 part series)
http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v00/n1085/a03.html

Paralyzed by Politics - (Part 7 of a 10 part series)
http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v00/n1085/a01.html

An Unfortunate Hypocrisy - (Part 8 of a 10 part series)
http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v00/n1085/a02.html

Throwing Away the Key - (Part 9 of a 10 part series)
http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v00/n1085/a04.html

Beyond Good and Evil - (Part 10 of a 10 part series)
http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v00/n1085/a05.html