LEGAL DRUGS, NOT JAILS, SHOULD BE U.S. COURSE

At a time when Americans may abandon health-care reform because it
supposedly is "too expensive," how is it that we can afford to
imprison people like Curtis Wilkerson?

Wilkerson is serving a life sentence in California -- for stealing a
$2.50 pair of socks. As The Economist noted, he already had two
offences on his record (both for abetting robbery at age 19) and so
the "three strikes" law resulted in a life sentence.

This is unjust, of course. But considering that California spends
almost $49,000 annually per inmate, it's also an extraordinary waste
of money.

Astonishingly, many politicians seem to think that the U.S. should
lead the world in prisons, not in health care or education. America is
anomalous among industrialized countries in the high proportion of
people it incarcerates; likewise, it stands out for the high
proportion of people who have no medical care -- and partly as a
result, health-care outcomes such as life expectancy and infant
mortality are unusually poor.

It's time for a fundamental re-evaluation of the criminal justice
system, as legislation sponsored by Sen. Jim Webb has called for, so
that the U.S. is no longer squandering money that would be far better
spent on education or health.

Consider a Few Facts:

. The U.S. incarcerates people at nearly five times the world average.
Of those sentenced to state prisons, 82 per cent were convicted of
nonviolent crimes, according to one study.

. California spends $216,000 annually on each inmate in the juvenile
justice system. In contrast, it spends only $8,000 on each child
attending the troubled Oakland public school system, according to the
Urban Strategies Council.

. For most of American history, it had incarceration rates similar to
those in other countries. Then with the "war on drugs" and the focus
on law and order in the 1970s, incarceration rates soared.

. One in 10 black men ages 25 to 29 were imprisoned last year, partly
because possession of crack cocaine (disproportionately used in black
communities) draws sentences equivalent to having 100 times as much
powder cocaine.

Look, there's no doubt that many people in prison are cold-blooded
monsters who deserve to be there. But overall, in a time of limited
resources, the U.S. is overinvesting in prisons and underinvesting in
schools.

Indeed, education spending may reduce the need for incarceration. The
evidence on this isn't conclusive, but it's noteworthy that graduates
of the Perry Preschool program in Michigan, an intensive effort for
disadvantaged children in the 1960s, were some 40 per cent less likely
to be arrested than those in a control group.

Above all, it's time for a rethink of drug policy. The point is not to
surrender to narcotics, but to learn from our approach to both tobacco
and alcohol. Over time, we have developed public health strategies
that have been quite successful in reducing the harm from smoking and
drinking.

If the U.S. wants to try a public health approach to drugs, it could
learn from Portugal. In 2001, that country decriminalized the
possession of all drugs for personal use. Ordinary drug users can
still be required to participate in a treatment program, but they are
no longer dispatched to jail.

"Decriminalization has had no adverse effect on drug usage rates in
Portugal," notes a report this year from the Cato Institute. It notes
that drug use appears to be lower in Portugal than in most other
European countries and that Portuguese public opinion is strongly
behind this approach.

A new United Nations study, World Drug Report 2009, commends the
Portuguese experiment and urges countries to continue to pursue
traffickers while largely avoiding imprisoning users. Instead, it
suggests that users, particularly addicts, should get treatment.

Webb has introduced legislation that would create a national
commission to investigate criminal justice issues -- for such a
commission may be the best way to depoliticize the issue and give
feckless politicians the cover they need to institute changes.

"There are only two possibilities here," Webb said in introducing his
bill, noting that America imprisons so many more people than other
countries. "Either we have the most evil people on earth living in the
United States, or we are doing something dramatically wrong in terms
of how we approach the issue of criminal justice."

Opponents of universal health care and early childhood education say
America can't afford them. Granted, deficits are a real constraint and
prison reform won't come near to fully financing health care reform.

Still, would we rather use scarce resources to educate children and
heal the sick, or to imprison people because they used drugs or stole
a pair of socks?

Nicholas D. Kristof is a columnist for the New York Times and author.