Pubdate: Fri, 20 Sep 2002
Source: Ft. Worth Star-Telegram (TX)
Copyright: 2002 Star-Telegram, Fort Worth, Texas
Contact:  http://www.star-telegram.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/162

STUDY: MOST DRUG INMATES NOT VIOLENT

WASHINGTON (AP) - Most drug offenders in state prisons are black males with 
no history of violence or high-level drug dealing, an interest group says.

The Sentencing Project, which advocates for alternatives to incarceration, 
says that just over half of these state inmates - 58 percent, or 124,885 
people - are nonviolent offenders.

"They represent a pool of appropriate candidates for diversion to treatment 
programs or some other type of community-based sanctions," the authors 
wrote. "The 'war on drugs' has been overly punitive and costly and has 
diverted attention and resources from potentially more constructive 
approaches."

Based largely on the government's 1997 Survey of Inmates in State 
Correctional Facilities, issued every five years, the study found that four 
out of every five drug offenders in state prisons are minorities. This is 
more than three times the rate of minority drug use in society, according 
to the 1997 National Household Survey on Drug Abuse.

Blacks constitute 56 percent of drug offender inmates, while Hispanics make 
up 23 percent of that group. Their respective proportions of all monthly 
drug users nationwide are 13 percent and 9 percent, the group said.

Meanwhile, three-quarters of all state drug inmates have no convictions for 
violence, the study said.

Todd Gaziano, who studies criminal justice as a senior fellow at the 
Heritage Foundation, criticized the study for relying on a survey that asks 
inmates to describe their own level of criminal activity.

And he said the Sentencing Project lumped many drug dealers together with 
those convicted of possession.

"Retail drug dealers may not be as culpable as international drug kingpins, 
but it is highly misleading to suggest that they are all merely low-level 
drug users who need nothing more than treatment and counseling," Gaziano said.

About 251,200 drug offenders reside in state prisons, the study says. Those 
inmates cost taxpayers about $5 billion every year.

Treatment versus incarceration for drug offenders is a decades-old debate 
mediated in some places by specially assigned drug courts that typically 
include drug treatment in their sentences for drug offenders.

While some advocate for alternatives to incarceration for minor drug 
offenders, others say the threat of incarceration has a deterrent effect.
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