TX "Lock-em-Up" Judge Criticizes Drug Sentences
In an editorial today, the Houston Chronicle praises a tough sentencing judge's call to reduce drug possession sentences.
Recently, state Judge Michael Mc-Spadden called on the governor and Legislature to reduce sentences for low-level drug possession. In a letter to Gov. Rick Perry, the judge, a former prosecutor with more than 20 years' judicial experience, wrote, "These minor offenses are now overwhelming every felony docket, and the courts necessarily spend less time on the more important, violent crimes."
The result has been that small-time offenders, some accused only of possessing residual amounts of cocaine in a crack pipe, are clogging local jails. In fact, there were almost two times as many Harris County defendants sent to state jails last year for possessing less than 1 gram of a drug — less than the contents of a sugar packet — than in all of the major urban counties of Dallas, Tarrant and Bexar combined. Possession of less than 1 gram of a drug is a felony that often lands people in state jail for six months to two years.
As the paper rightly notes, this is a problem for everyone in the community, not just the offenders:
Police say they arrest low-level users as a crime deterrent. That may be. But once in custody, addicts would be better served by improved options for drug treatment outside prison, while they remain under court supervision and fulfill requirements to be employed or get training. County officials should use some of the millions they are thinking of lavishing on new jail construction to fund such programs.
After all, the ill effects on a community of committing huge numbers of prospectless drug addicts to lengthy jail sentences and felony records without dealing with their underlying drug dependence are well-documented and long-term. And those ill effects are suffered by everyone in this county.
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