PROP 5: OPTIONS TO JAIL TIME

Treatment of drug offenders in the criminal justice system has always
been self-contradictory. The law stipulates punishment. The offender
needs treatment.

Without treatment, the offender commits crimes again and escalates
the cycle. Incarceration, however, is often the only way to keep the
offender from succumbing to the temptations of substance abuse and
committing more crime.

Meanwhile, some agencies estimate that as many as 70 percent of the
nation's prisoners need drug treatment.

Proposition 5 is a measure to offer drug treatment as an alternative
to incarceration. The object is mostly to relieve California of some
of the expense for keeping 171,000 prisoners behind bars, which comes
to more than $10 billion a year.

Supporters say it would cost the state $1 billion a year to offer
rehabilitation treatment programs to drug offense prisoners. Only
"nonviolent" offenders would be eligible, and the state would save
about $1 billion used to keep them locked up. It costs the state
$46,000 per inmate per year to incarcerate a prisoner, and the
population is growing.

Proposition 5 would create a three-track drug treatment diversion
program. It's complicated, but basically first-time offenders would
serve no jail time or probation if they completed a treatment
program. Second offenders could avoid prison as long as their offense
was more than five years ago and they agreed to supervised probation
for a year. Other offenders could be sentenced to rehabilitation by a
judge's discretion only. Proposition 5 would also ease penalties for
some parole violations and would offer offenders credit against their
sentences for drug treatment programs completed.

Decriminalizes marijuana

The proposition would also make possession of one ounce or less of
marijuana an infraction punishable by a fine of up to $100. Minors
would not be fined for a first offense, but would be required to
complete a drug education program. Proposition 5 essentially
decriminalizes possession of marijuana for personal use, with no jail
time and no criminal record.

Opponents of Proposition 5 are critical of the reduction of criminal
penalties for a wide range of crimes -- burglary, auto theft,
insurance fraud, identity theft -- if they are related to drug abuse.
Proposition 5 reduces sentences of methampheamine dealers, for
instance, from three years to six months. Opponents of Proposition 5
also warn that it will simply shift the burden of punishing offenders
from the state to the local level.

The local angle

Local criminal justice leaders Sheriff Bill Wittman, District
Attorney Phil Cline and Judge Glade Roper all say Proposition 5 would
expose the public to more criminals and burden the county with the
cost of incarcerating and treating them. They recommend a no vote on 5.