Ease up on Drug War by Lightening Punishment

'Tis time for a change up in the drug war, lest we lose it.

Time to quit tossing so many people in jail.

I pick up Sunday's paper and what do I read?  "Mass incarceration hasn't made us safer," says the headline. It's an article by Jess Rigelhaupt, written for the Free Lance-Star in Fredricksburg, Va. (The article was reprinted in the Deseret News.)

"The United States is the largest jailer in the world," Rigelhaupt writes, noting we have 2.3 million people locked up. "It has an unrivaled incarceration rate," he says, explaining that one out of every 100 adults is behind bars.

Now, however is it, in America, that we could be locking up more people than any other nation? Is this in America, the land of the free?

Rigelhaupt lays it at the feet of the drug war. More than half of the new sentences to state prisons from 1985 to 2000 were for drug offenses, he says. And, he tells why. The nation got "tough on crime in the mid-1970s, with longer sentences, mandatory jail time and new reasons for sending folks to jail on drug offenses.

Well, lay the article down. I don't know that we are losing the war on drugs, but we are losing the war for public support of a war on drugs. However are you going to justify the war when it has led us to pack more people into prison than any other nation? That doesn't fit the image of the land of the free. If you are the land of the incarcerated, it is hard to claim you are also the land of the free.

So, let's quit tossing so many people in jail. No, I'm not talking of legalizing drugs, not at all. But, let us step down the penalty, lighten it up.

Instead of jails, halfway houses. Let's place drug users in monitored housing. I suppose some would say they will still be incarcerated, but, if they are to so be considered, it will be to a lesser degree. Require them to live in the housing, and chase them down when they wander too much, but don't actually lock them up unless they are testing positive or buying drugs.

Instead of getting tougher on drugs, get lighter.

Now, one of the negative effects of drug use is that the drug user is less inclined to go to work. Drugs tend to take a person out of the workplace. So, as a punishment, let's require them to work. Whenever work can be found outside the housing, give them work leave for the day to do the work.

Perhaps there is a chance such a move might be good for our employment numbers. Many a drug user is without a job. If we take a segment of our society that is not working, and place them in jobs, employment should increase. We won't find jobs for them all, but pushing them at the job market will be a pressuring force to drive up the number of people working.

And, fight the tendency to over staff the housing. I don't know what would be a good ratio of workers to residents. Is one attendant for every 35 residents enough? Perhaps.

The monitored housing approach would mean the residents would be tested regularly, perhaps even daily. As long as they are clean, they maintain their privilege of coming and going from the housing. If they are not clean, then they are restricted. And, if they still get in trouble when simply told they have to stay home, then finally lock them up.

It's an easing of the punishment for using drugs. I wonder but what it might prove a more effective way of reducing usage.