Pubdate: Thu, 25 Jan 2001
Source: Salt Lake Tribune (UT)
Copyright: 2001 The Salt Lake Tribune
Contact:  143 S Main, Salt Lake City UT 84111
Fax: (801)257-8950
Website: http://www.sltrib.com/
Forum: http://www.sltrib.com/tribtalk/
Author: Robert Sharpe, Lindesmith Center

SENSELESS PRACTICE

Regarding Salt Lake City Mayor Rocky Anderson's call for President Clinton 
to grant clemency to hundreds of nonviolent drug offenders, keeping such 
offenders behind bars is a senseless waste of tax dollars.

The land of the free recently earned the dubious distinction of having the 
highest incarceration rate in the world, with drug offenses accounting for 
the majority of federal incarcerations. This is big government at its 
worst. At an average cost of $25,071 per inmate annually, maintaining the 
world's largest prison system can hardly be considered fiscally conservative.

Numerous studies have found that prison actually transmits violent habits 
and values rather than reduces them. Keep in mind that most non-violent 
drug offenders are eventually released, with dismal job prospects due to 
criminal records. Rather than waste scarce resources turning potentially 
productive members of society who use drugs into hardened criminals, we 
should be funding cost-effective treatment. As far as crime is concerned, 
alcohol was once very much associated with organized crime until 
Prohibition was repealed in 1933. It's time to rethink the failed drug war 
and start treating all substance abuse, legal or otherwise, as the public 
health problem it is.

ROBERT SHARPE The Lindesmith Center-Drug Policy Foundation Washington, D.C.
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