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Drug War: Fail

Richard Branson, founder of Virgin Group and member of the Global Drug Commision, has an op-ed at CNN on the failure of the war on drugs.

Here we are, four decades after Richard Nixon declared the war on drugs in 1971 and $1 trillion spent since then. What do we have to show for it?

The U.S. has the largest prison population in the world, with about 2.3 million behind bars. More than half a million of those people are incarcerated for a drug law violation. What a waste of young lives.

[More...]

In business, if one of our companies is failing, we take steps to identify and solve the problem. What we don't do is continue failing strategies that cost huge sums of money and exacerbate the problem. Rather than continuing on the disastrous path of the war on drugs, we need to look at what works and what doesn't in terms of real evidence and data.

Our federal prisons are operating at 38% over-capacity.

BOP’s population has increased from about 145,000 in 2000 to about 217,000 in 2011 and BOP is operating at 38 percent over capacity.

According to a September, 2012 GAO report, 48 percent of the inmates in the Bureau of Prisons were serving sentences for drugs. Inmates are being double and triple bunked. The percentage of crowding in male medium security facilities is at 51 percent and at 55 percent in high security level facilities. At the end of 2011, 81 percent of male inmates housed in low security facilities were triple bunked.

According to BOP and our observations, the growth of the federal inmate population and related crowding have negatively affected inmates housed in BOP institutions, institutional staff, and the infrastructure of BOP facilities, and have contributed to inmate misconduct, which affects staff and inmate security and safety....The growth in the inmate population affects inmates’ daily living conditions, program participation, meaningful work opportunities, and visitation.

...As a result of BOP actions to increase available bed space in its institutions to accommodate the growing federal inmate population, more inmates are sharing cells and other living units, which brings together for longer periods of time inmates with a higher risk of violence and more potential victims.

On November 29, the Bureau of Justice Statistics published its report, 2011 Correctional Populations in the United States.

  • At year end 2011, about 1 in every 50 adults in the U.S. was supervised in the community on probation or parole while about 1 in every 107 adults was incarcerated in prison or jail.
  • 7 million adults were supervised about 7 million adults. 1 in every 34 adult
    residents in the U.S. was under some form of
    correctional supervision

As to the incarcerated: The total number for 2011 is 2,239,800

  • 214,774 Federal inmates
  • 1,289,376 State inmates
  • 735,601 Inmates in local jails
  • 1,504,150 in state prisons

The U.S. now has the highest incarceration rate in the world.

What happens when you change minor drug offenses from a crime to a civil infraction? California has new statistics: adult arrests rates for marijuana plummeted by 86%, from 54,900 in 2010 to 7,800 in 2011, "levels not seen since before the Summer of Love." The statistical tables are here.

Marijuana manufacture and sales felonies fell from 16,600 in 2010 to in 14,100 2011, a rate decline of 10% among youths and 17% among adults. Overall, marijuana arrests dropped 70% in California from 2010 to 2011.

According to the National Institute of Health, in 2011, marijuana was the most commonly used illicit drug, with 18.1 million current users. 8.0 million persons aged 12 or older were users of drugs other than marijuana. Put another way, 80.5% of current drug users used only marijuana while 19.5% used other drugs and not marijuana, and 16.2 % used marijuana and other drugs. 5 million Americans age 12 and older used marijuana daily in the last year.

The SAMSA report also finds 22.5 million Americans aged 12 or older were current illicit drug users, meaning they had used a drug within the past month.

As to cocaine, 3,628,000 Americans aged 12 or older used cocaine in 2011, of whom 2,375,000 were White, 353,000 were Black or African-American, 655,000 were Hispanic or Latino. The statistical tables are here.

There were 1,531,251 arrests for drug law violations in 2011. 81.8% (1,252,563) were for possession of a controlled substance. Only 18.2% (278,687) were for the sale or manufacturing of a drug.

Many more statistics are available at Drug War Facts.

Mass incarceration is not the answer. The War on Drugs is an expensive failure.

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  • Display: Sort:
    Finally, (5.00 / 5) (#1)
    by NYShooter on Fri Dec 07, 2012 at 09:13:47 AM EST
    a thread I can comment on without fear of being deleted. What can I say Jeralyn; your crusade, pointing out the tragic "Fail" that is our drug policy, if you do nothing else for the rest of your life you will have accomplished more than any person has a right to expect.

    As a battle hardened Senior, and a naturalized one to boot, I can tell you that I don't cry easily. But, what my country has done to justice, reason, fairness, common sense, and just plain old decency has me balling like a baby.

    I don't have to spell out the details, we all know them by heart. And, as one who has spent a lot of time in prisons (not as an inmate) I can also tell you that one night of being incarcerated is, and don't fight me on this, torture, by any interpretation of the word you want to use. That we have hundreds, and hundreds of thousands of (mostly) young, non-violent men who should be learning a trade, getting an education, and/or raising a family, are rotting away in a soul sucking cage is, by my definition, a crime against humanity.

    And, as we are getting ready to begin Obama's second term the thought of countless thousands of my brothers having their dignity drained from their beings will be front and center of my "what to do list."

    So, as I enter the final quadrant of a pretty fortunate life, I believe I've found the issue that just might extend this old shooter's days a little longer.

    I'll keep you posted.


    And then there's this: private prison corporations (5.00 / 4) (#2)
    by Dadler on Fri Dec 07, 2012 at 10:52:23 AM EST
    Our most sickening private sector development over the last generation. Imagine being a lobbyist for this industry. You entire job is to make sure we have more laws that will put more people in your client's quite profitable cages. Sick, sick, sick. Beyond sick, Orwellian diseased.

    Parent
    No more sick that public prisons. (5.00 / 1) (#3)
    by redwolf on Fri Dec 07, 2012 at 11:34:03 AM EST
    Both are institutions of mental and physical torture and should be ended.  Locking people in cages is no way to deal with crime.

    Parent
    Yes, they are MUCH more sick (5.00 / 1) (#14)
    by Dadler on Fri Dec 07, 2012 at 08:32:18 PM EST
    I am no fan of prison policy period, but leaving it to a FOR PROFIT PRIVATE CORPORATION is simply insane. I understand your point and agree with almost all of it, but I happen to think that, yes, private prisons, because of their profit motive, are simply beyond all use or morality. But if you think I'm going to defend Pelican Bay or Attica or wherever else, forget it. And the lobbying is just revolting, on top of the already revolting lock them all up policy we pursue.

    Parent
    Wow! (2.00 / 1) (#19)
    by Abdul Abulbul Amir on Sat Dec 08, 2012 at 08:44:29 AM EST

    I am no fan of prison policy period, but leaving it to a FOR PROFIT PRIVATE CORPORATION is simply insane.

    Has your opinion changed regarding those private corporations that are the prison guard unions?  They have a powerful motive to see the prisons full and wads of cash to influence politicians.

     

    Parent

    Oy (5.00 / 1) (#35)
    by sj on Mon Dec 10, 2012 at 09:19:30 AM EST
    Seriously?  That's your gotcha?  For-profit prisons are an abomination. CCPOA does lobbying for "tough-on-crime" legislation (sick indeed, as Dadler says), but changing the subject to them is pure diversionary tactics.  Prison guards are not paid "per prisoner".  Unlike the owners of said prisons.

    Parent
    lol. But some judges ... (none / 0) (#36)
    by Mr Natural on Mon Dec 10, 2012 at 11:08:26 AM EST
    ... are paid per prisoner.

    Parent %%norm_font