JAILHOUSE SCRIBE DESERVES NO POETIC JUSTICE

There's a lot of power in the written word. There's a lot of idiocy,
too.

DeWayne Wickham's recent column is an example of both.

The power behind Mr. Wickham's scribblings is easy to identify. As a
columnist and reporter for Gannett News Service, and the author of
best-selling books with a political agenda, Wickham's words have the
potential to reach an audience of millions. That's powerful.

And that's why discretion - or at least common sense - should be the
better part of his written valor. It wasn't on Wednesday.

In his July 21 column, Mr. Wickham suggests that minimum sentencing
laws for non-violent criminals are unwise. Where is the logic, he
asked, in sentencing a non-violent offender to the same sentence as
serial killers such as Ted Kaczynski or Gary Ridgeway?

Actually, Mr. Wickham didn't ask this question on his own - he was
prompted by Ross Alan Milburn, a man who has a professional interest
in the matter. Milburn is a jailhouse scribe at the federal prison in
Florence, Colo. who suggests that "our democracy has already become a
penal colony."

The logic behind Mr. Wickham's column from this revelation on is
something he should have kept locked away himself.

When Mr. Wickham and Milburn discuss non-violent offenders, they don't
mean those people put away for parking tickets or disturbing the
peace. They mean non-violent drug dealers. "There is a big difference
in the criminal mind of a mass murderer and the mind of a man who
engages in and conducts an illegal business," Milburn writes, Mr.
Wickham transcribes and I copy.

More of Milburn: "The criminal mind of a drug dealer is not much
different from that of a Wall Street stock broker ripping off his clients."

Then, shudder, this from Mr. Wickham: "I think he makes a good point.
It's time to rethink a policy that metes out long, mandatory prison
sentences to nonviolent criminals."

No, Mr. Wickham, apparently you did not think.

You did not think about your child being seduced by a drug dealer on
way to school.

You did not think about the single-mother addict whose children are
left alone, again, while mom goes out to score.

You did not think about the career professional, hooked on drugs, who
can no longer provide for his family because his job took a powder.

You did not think about the spouse, the mother, the father, the
brother and sister who pace the hallway at 3 a.m. wondering what hole,
alley or crack house their loved one is in tonight.

You did not think about the millions of dollars spent on health care
for recovering addicts, the abysmal rate of recovery and the cost to
society.

You did not think about the tough love that gets tougher with every
hit, puff, snort or shot.

You, Mr. Wickham, did not think.

Figuring the intangibles you must figure when discussing such
"non-violent criminals," and counting the costs of drug use that lie
hidden behind countless doors in every neighborhood in America, these
criminals touch and wrack our society every bit as much as a Unabomber
or a Charles Man-son.

Non-violent, Mr. Wickham? I think not.

But you didn't ask me. In fact, you didn't ask anybody except a inmate
at a federal prison.

And he, Milburn, has "got a point," you write. "For all of the harm
that nonviolent drug dealers do, their crimes are hardly comparable to
those of Kaczynski, Ridgeway and Manson."

Here, Mr. Wickham, I concede your point. The crimes of nonviolent drug
dealers, in terms of lives destroyed and families lost, can be worse.
So much worse.

No minimum sentencing for drug dealers?

Think again, Mr. Wickham.