By Jordan St. John
Special to In Motion
DSC student comments on Opioid Epidemic by Chelsea Wall
As someone starting their career in law
enforcement, there is a commonly known issue in the
criminal justice system, but little is being done to fix it. That is, the overcrowding of prisonsby nonviolent drug offenders.
I hope to convince you that this problem is of concern to you and that there are options to alleviate this burden on American society.
We live in a country that is always seeking to reform one thing or another. Nothing will ever be
perfect but the goal of Americans is to work together to find the best option for the country as a whole. But the issue of long jail sentences for nonviolent drug offenders has been on a back burner too long. Perhaps it is over looked because many people can’t see how it applied or effects them. If they take a step back and look at it from a broader perspective, they will see how the community at large is impacted.
According to the Bureau of Prison’s statistics, drug violations account for more than 45 percent of inmates, the next closest demographic is inmates incarcerated for weapons and arson-related crimes, which account for a mere 16 percent. This illustrates the huge disparity in what people are being imprisoned for. Even one of the most common crimes, burglary, only accounts for 4 percent of those in prison.
A 2010 Census report shows whites represent 65 percent of the U.S. population and 40 percent of those incarcerated, while black Americans comprise 13 percent of the population and 39 percent of those in prisons.
Going back to 1988, some 17 years after President Richard Nixon declared a war on drugs, A Time magazine cover story titled “The Prison System is Broken” argued for drug legalization. The article took a long look at where mandatory long-term prison sentencing began and how it was, and is, having a long and everlasting effect on the U.S. economy.
Annually, the federal prison budget is around $75 billion dollars, that’s with a “B.” That is more than the U.S. Department of Education’s gets to teach our children. In 2016, the Department of Education released an analysis that found state and local spending on prisons and jails increased at triple the rate of funding for public education in the last three decades.
That speaks volumes about the priorities of our nation. When half of all inmates are in prison for nonviolent drug offenses, primarily due to strict mandatory minimums that began over 40 years ago, it is amazing to think what we might do with the money saved by reforming those laws.
In a TED talk drug law reformist Ethan Nadlemann focuses on how important it is to change the status quo. He compares the war on drugs to alcohol prohibition, except that the war on drugs is 50 times worse. Nadlemann, who wrote his PhD on drug law reforms, argues that the people who are in jail for such crimes are there because they chose one bad thing over another.
“If middle-age white men preferred smoking crack cocaine and young black men preferred Viagra, you better believe that you could get crack from a doctor and five to10 years for Viagra,” he says.
And that is another disparity in this war. Race and economics also play a huge factor in who gets time and who does not. Nadlemann makes a great point when he says the United States’ automatic reaction of locking up drug addicts runs counter to other First World nations that make it a medical issue, not a criminal one. He says such enlightened policies take power away from drug dealers and cartels, while helping the population struggling with a drug problem.
I am not advocating for complete legalization, but there need to be more medical options given to addicts instead of criminal ones The government must shift its focus to sentencing reforms. The ’80s and ’90s passed way too many “reforms” in mandatory drug sentencing. In the book “Rise of the Warrior Cop” it discusses President Reagan address to the nation where he announced a tougher rendition of the War on Drugs. This has led to the biggest increase in incarceration rates for nonviolent drug offenders in American history.
Given all we know about the failed war on drugs, and the current opioid epidemic, it is hard to understand why change has not been set into motion.