COP'S POT TICKET IDEA MERITS A TRIAL RUN

Chicago police officers are wasting a lot of their time and the
taxpayers' money on misdemeanor marijuana cases.

That was the central point last week of a pitch made by police Sgt.
Thomas Donegan to his boss, Supt. Phil Crane.

Donegan submitted some statistics to the superintendent, analyzing the
outcome of misdemeanor possession cases involving 30 grams or less.
For readers who don't have a metric conversion chart at hand, 28 grams
is an ounce.

Here's what Donegan told Cline: 94 percent of cases involving less than 2.5
grams of pot got dropped last year because prosecutors didn't think they
were worth pursuing, or there was something wrong with the arrest, or
because the arresting officer didn't show up in court. In cases involving
between 2.5 and 10 grams, 81 percent were dropped. Fifty-two percent of
cases involving between 10 and 30 grams were dropped.

Donegan told his boss it's a waste of time for police officers to
arrest and book somebody who is almost certainly going to be let off,
and it's a waste of money to have cops spending their time making such
arrests and going to court to testify about them.

There were more than 20,000 arrests in Chicago last year involving 30
grams or less, and almost 7,000 of them centered on 2.5 grams or less.

Donegan suggested that the police department could save time and the
city would probably make money if, rather than arresting people for
possessing minimal amounts of marijuana, police were allowed to write
them a ticket.

Proponents of a ticket system believe people would be inclined to pay
a fine of $250, $500 or $1,000 rather than fight the charges, so
police officers wouldn't have to go to court to testify. The proposal
would result in more marijuana arrests ending in a legal sanction, and
the city would gain revenue rather than waste it.

The village of Darien in the western suburbs has handled misdemeanor
marijuana cases with tickets since the 1970s. Police officers there
have the option of writing a ticket or making a misdemeanor arrest,
depending on the circumstances.

We think it would make sense for Chicago to try something along the
same lines. Mayor Richard Daley seemed to say last week that he liked
the idea, although one of his spokesmen backed away from the proposal
the same day.

Donegan's idea makes sense to us, although we think his schedule of
fines is too high. Someone facing a $500 or $1,000 fine is not
necessarily going to pay it to save an hour or two, and if people
don't pay the fines, cops will be right back in court.

Daley, the police department and the state's attorney ought to sit
down and talk about this proposal and figure out a way to give it at
least a trial run.