The Justice Department has announced that it will no longer
pursue mandatory minimum sentencing for certain drug offenses. This is good news for a variety of
reasons.
Since its introduction in the 1980s, MMS has contributed to
exploding prison populations, budgets, and decreasing conditions. The shortage of prison space and funds has
led to the rise of a for profit prison industry, which lobbies hard for the
maintenance and expansion of mandatory minimums while housing prisoners who are
the responsibility of the state in substandard conditions, reaping profit for
incarceration. Call it my knee-jerk
Socialist reaction to privatization, but that’s not the sort of thing we should
be incentivizing!
Mandatory minimums were officially conceived as deterrent to
growing drug use. Clearly this has not
worked; since the mid 1980s prison populations have nonupled, spurred by
unequal enforcement of the laws and unequal application of even mandated
sentences. Prison has not proven
effective at curbing drug problem- it is time to experiment with limited
legalization, and begin treating this as a public health matter. Salt Lake City for one, (hardly a bastion of
bleeding heart liberals or whatever the kids are calling us nowadays), has done
a lot towards implementing this. There
will always be a problem with encouraging people to seek treatment for a
problem that is punishable by law.
Legalization is the best way to cut off funding for criminals, making
the streets safer, and maybe even the people healthier.
It is also important to remain cognizant of the limits of
this action. Firstly, it will apply only
to certain federal cases, leaving the majority of case procedure unchanged,
including all at the state level.
Secondly this does not seem likely to have any bearing on those already
incarcerated on insignificant drug charges.
Thirdly, barring a change in the law, Mandatory Minimums can be restored
at any point, and presumably will be under the next Republican
administration. Still, in short term,
there will be fewer incarcerations- how few I don’t know, but it’s an
improvement, or at least a mitigation of a serious problem. Now we need to follow this up with state action
along similar lines, and the establishment of decent treatment options.
And yes, I’ve got to say, my fury at the president’s
conservatism is why I started this blog in the first place, and that fury still
remains powerful, and I dare say justified.
For the most part, however, law enforcement has been one area where we
have seen noteworthy improvement, and however atrocious the president and attorney
general’s record on Civil Liberties, I must say
“Whatever
the reasons behind it, nice one, Barack.”
(Can we please have a
public works program now? Or at least
nationalize something?)
Solidatität, meine Genossen und Genossinnen
Genosse Graham
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