NOT ALL DRUG ADDICTS ARE CREATED EQUAL

Wisconsin locks up too many druggies, says a new report, which
contends we'll get better results treating them instead of imprisoning
them.

Which may well be true. The report is sponsored by the Drug Policy
Alliance, which envisions a society "in which people are no longer
punished for what they put into their own bodies," and was done by
Justice Strategies, a couple of researchers whose clients include the
Prison Moratorium Project.

All of which is to say they're coming in with an agenda, which
columnists do, too. On the other hand, their data are real. So we
should take their ideas seriously. Part of that, however, is being
careful about who we don't imprison.

Wisconsin's locking up more people, says one of the researchers, Kevin
Pranis, not because our truth-in-sentencing laws are keeping inmates
in.

Rather, the state's catching more people possessing drugs, and in its
most populous county particularly, it's sending more of them to prison
on their first offense. Judges he talked to lack confidence in
probation, and, untreated, addictions mean inmates' lives will be just
as screwed up after prison as before.

So researchers recommend a lot of hand-holding - treat the addictions,
find some housing, offer an education. They say it will be cheaper
than perpetual prison.

Sounds good. But:

Throughout the report, the researchers are clear they're talking about
non-violent offenders. They're motivated by reducing the number of
addicts in prison, but they speak more generally of inmates who
committed non-violent crimes, only some of which are drug possession.

Of the 2,900 most ripe for treatment instead of prison, about 1,000
were in for non-violent property offenses. More than half of these
were thieves.

Non-violent offenders made West Racine residents angry enough to wear
shirts reading, "Free Adrial White."

White is the man now charged with murder after, police say, he shot a
19-year-old breaking into his girlfriend's car last month. About 300
people packed a church last week, many to tell officials they feel
threatened not by White but by the garage break-ins, the car
break-ins, the tire slashings in their neighborhood.

"I don't blame him," says Ken Martini, who lives five blocks from
where White stopped the break-in.

Martini's been robbed. His garage has been broken into. His neighbors'
garages have been broken into. His daughter's car's been broken into.
A bunch of cars up and down the street have had their tires slashed,
over and over, for the past two years.

All this would be regarded as non-violent property crime. The
researchers are careful to exclude burglars who use weapons or hit
houses, but even when it's an unoccupied car that's broken into, says
Martini, it scares people and deprives them of property - a car to
drive to work, for instance.

"People are afraid, afraid to walk down the streets at night," says
Martini.

In the neighborhood for 45 years, he says he's not about to leave.
"I'll fight my ground if I have to," he says. "I'm not giving up my
rights as a citizen and a property owner."

Still, he'd feel safer with more police on foot, more consequences.
"When they arrest them, they let them go right away. There's no
punishment," he says.

There ought to be punishment. There ought to be more police, if that's
what it takes.

And sure, there ought to be treatment for addicts, maybe even instead
of prison, and treatment for inmates who commit property crimes to
finance addictions.

But if Wisconsin's regretting how many people it locks up, it must
distinguish the differing dangers that non-violent criminals pose.

Addicts and burglars are not equivalent risks. One can argue that
someone busted for possessing two grams of crack is a threat chiefly
to himself, better treated than imprisoned. It's much harder to see a
car break-in as unthreatening.

Non-violent property crimes inflict violence on the sense of peace
that citizens are entitled to.

The state must not, in the interest of being more humane to the merely
addicted, become too easy on those who take property.