Yes on Proposition 47, Ending the Gulag Nation

© by Mark Dempsey (10/21/14)

Either we have the most evil people on earth living in the U.S., or we are doing something dramatically wrong in terms of how we approach the issue of criminal justice. -- U.S. Senator Jim Webb

The U.S. is the world champion of incarceration. In either absolute or per-capita numbers it jails more people than any other nation on earth. With five percent of the world's population, the U.S. has 25% of its prisoners.

In other words, roughly four out of five of prisoners in the U.S. would not be in jail in an average nation. The human cost, the waste of potential and money, implied by that last sentence beggars description.

California’s Proposition 47 is an incremental step to redress that imbalance. Sure, opponents will say that reclassifying some non-violent felonies will release some bad prisoners, and there’s bound to be someone who injures an innocent victim after having been let out or let off. But there are examples of people who win the lottery too. That doesn’t make it a retirement plan.

Thanks to the drug war, we have had fifty years of incarceration mania, and the results are in. Compared to the Canadians, who have identical demographics, and incarcerate at roughly one seventh the rate we do, crime rates have differed only insignificantly between our two countries.

So incarceration does not prevent crime. But it scares drug addicts straight, right? Nope, not even that. Incarceration costs roughly seven times more than rehab and produces worse outcomes. It also reduces the money available for more-effective drug programs, education, and other crime-prevention measures.

In fact criminalizing drugs is extraordinarily counter-productive. The Swiss de-criminalized even heroin and found crime declined 85% around the clinics serving addicts. Portugal had a similar experience with their “Harm Reduction” program. And as the U.S. builds more jails, the Swedes are actually mothballing prisons because they lack prisoners.

As any twelve-step program will tell you, addiction is a public health problem, not a moral failing. It’s as civilized to jail an addict as it is to jail a diabetic for their “drug dependency.”

Naturally, people of color have suffered the brunt of the drug war, receiving punishments far in excess of what whites get. Their numbers under prison supervision exceed the number of slaves in 1850. Michelle Alexander’s The New Jim Crow calls attention to this, pointing out that those vaunted civil rights victories for which we congratulate ourselves do not apply to felons. And how do we get more felons? Criminalizing public health problems is a start.

Finally, for those who believe I’m some tree-hugger, this issue transcends the supposed left/right political divide. Most facts cited above come from Judge Jim Gray, a former drug prosecutor who, at one time, held the record for prosecuting the biggest bust in the U.S. He was appointed a judge in California’s most conservative corner (Orange County), and has become convinced of the futility of the drug war from his first hand experience.

A “yes” vote on California’s proposition 47 is beyond overdue. This proposition reduces some non-violent felonies to misdemeanors, and starts to dial back the incarceration insanity. It’s worth registering to vote just for this one, if you haven’t already.