Mandatory Drug Sentences Endanger Public Safetyby Linda Clark
Washington-Mandatory minimum sentences for nonviolent drug offenders are the best thing that ever happened to violent criminals, says David B. Kopel, a former assistant attorney general for the state of Colorado, in a new study from Cato Institute. Kopel, who is also a former prosecutor for New York City, shows how mandatory minimum sentences enacted in the 1980s have led to the early release of violent criminals to make room in our prisons for nonviolent, often first-time, drug offenders. Despite record booms in state and federal prison construction, the average American prison system remains 15.4% over capacity. Forty states, two territories, and the District of Columbia are currently under court orders to reduce prison overcrowding. The federal system is 38% over capacity. The drastic increase in the state and federal prison population is primarily the result of policy changes, not demographics. In 1981 only 22% of federal prisoners were drug prisoners. Today 60% of federal prisoners are drug prisoners, and that figure is expected to hit 70% next year. In virtually every state there has been a massive emphasis on imprisoning drug offenders. Illinois prisons, for example, hold five times as many drug prisoners as they did five years ago. Kopel uses free-market analysis to show that trying to control drug use through imprisonment is doomed to fail. If society imprisons one-half of the armed robbers, the rate of armed robbery will decline about 50%. The same analysis applies to burglars and rapists. But if a drug dealer is imprisoned, the availability of drugs will not be diminished. The law of supply and demand states that as long as there is a demand for a product, a market will make that product available at some price. Kopel argues that allocating vast amounts of prison space to such easily replaced offenders is not simply a waste of resources but a dangerous waste. Instead of spending more money on prison space for nonviolent offenders, Kopel argues that we should return prisons to their original purpose of incapacitating violent criminals. He advocates revision or repeal of mandatory minimums for consensual offenses, tightening of parole standards, and tougher laws aimed at repeat violent offenders. Prison Blues: How America's Foolish Sentencing Policies Endanger Public Safety, is #208 in the Policy Analysis series published by the Cato Institute, an independent public policy research organization in Washington, D.C.
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