Ever wonder why our prisons are so horribly overcrowded? Most people assume this is because our legal system is doing its job, putting those hardcore criminals away. Do we have more criminals than other countries? Do we simply catch more of them?
The fact is that a major reason why our prisons are overcrowded is because our government decided to “get tough” on drugs. I’m reading a book entitled, written by Alan Elsner. This book puts issues such as our “War On Drugs” into perspective.
For instance:
From 1980 to 2001, the annual number of drug-related arrests tripled. In one year, there were 1,586,900 drug-related arrests. This amounts to 4,348 each day – one every 20 seconds. Approximately 20% of these were for selling or manufacturing drugs. The rest – an overwhelming 80% – were for possession alone.
Are we doing this “war” justice by arresting more than 4,000 people each day for a crime that has no victim? We put these “criminals” into a prison system with gangbangers and hardcore, lifelong criminals. What good do we expect to come of that?
A May 2005 report by The Sentencing Project found that the number of arrests for marijuana offenses had risen from 327,000 in 1990 to 697,000 in 2002. Of those arrests, 88% were for possession alone.
More people are not getting high. We are simply arresting more of them. Is it helping? Are we winning this war?
Mandatory sentencing is another problem contributing to our prison overcrowding. And this comes right back to our war on drugs. The average sentence for drug offenses rose from 54.5 months in 1980 to 75.5 months in 2000. The average sentence for assault in 2000 was 33 months.
Getting busted with a half-ounce of weed spend about 6 1/2 years in prison. Bust someone’s face against a cement wall and you could be out in just over 2 1/2 years. More than twice the prison time for marijuana possession as for a violent crime. How is this making our country a better place?
