LESS LAW MEANS LESS CRIME

Seeking response to Gov. M. Jodi Rell's budget proposal, a television
news reporter surveyed businesses near the courthouse in Meriden,
which the governor wouldChris Powell close. The reporter found a bail
bondsman worrying that he might have to close his office too.

Criminal justice apparently isn't just overhead expense for society;
it's economic development. Maybe Connecticut should try putting
everybody in jail.

Actually, one sign that state government is getting serious about
saving money will be that it is ready to put fewer people in jail.

That question will be answered in part by the fate of legislation
proposed by two senior New Haven Democrats. A bill from Martin Looney,
the Senate Majority Leader, and Toni N. Harp, chair of the Senate
Appropriations Committee, would reduce the criminal penalty for
possession of small amounts of marijuana.

While any possession now carries liability for a year in prison and a
$1,000 fine, the senators would make minor possession punishable only
by a small fine payable by ticket.

Criminal justice in Connecticut is a multibillion-dollar operation
consisting mainly of chasing dopeheads around to enforce a prohibition
that works even worse than the alcohol prohibition of the 1920s did.

That is, it works only as a lavish employment program for police,
prosecutors, defense lawyers, prison guards, parole and probation
officers, and judges.

But like nearly everything else in state government, this policy is
never audited for results, never evaluated against standards of
success. It is an unthinking presumption that can be doubted only in
the most timid way.

At least the Looney-Harp bill implicitly asks how much drug
criminalization Connecticut can afford. Less law means less crime.