Pubdate: Tue, 15 Nov 2005
Source: News & Observer (Raleigh, NC)
Copyright: 2005 The News and Observer Publishing Company
Contact: https://miva.nando.com/contact-us/letter-editor.html
Website: http://www.news-observer.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/304
Author: Thomasi McDonald
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/decrim.htm (Decrim/Legalization)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?199 (Mandatory Minimum Sentencing)

DRUG SENTENCES UNDER SCRUTINY

Forum Addresses Prison Overcrowding

Describing the war on drugs as "an utter failure, a total failure," a 
former N.C. Supreme Court chief justice said Monday that the state 
should consider decriminalizing drug offenses to reduce the need for 
additional prisons.

"What if we decriminalized drugs?" Burley B. Mitchell Jr. asked at a 
forum on prisons in downtown Raleigh. "If you knock out all the 
profits, then there would be no more Colombian cartel. There would be 
no more Mexican cartel. They would be broken."

Drug offenses should be treated as a medical problem, he added.

"God, what could we do with the money we spend on sending people to 
jail?" Mitchell said.

Mitchell, who was chief justice from 1995 through 1999, was one of 
three panel members for "Getting Smart on Crime: Facing North 
Carolina's Prison Crisis," at the Exploris Museum.

The forum was co-hosted by N.C. Policy Watch, an organization with 
the goal of changing the way government officials debate issues, and 
Families Against Mandatory Minimums, a national nonprofit that 
challenges sentencing laws. About 50 community activists, legislators 
and others attended the event, which focused on the state's prison 
bed crisis and the disproportionate numbers of blacks in prison.

A second panelist, Marc Mauer, executive director of The Sentencing 
Project, a criminal justice research and advocacy nonprofit in 
Washington, noted that the United States has 2 million people behind 
bars on any given day. Nationally, more than half of all federal 
prisoners are in for drug offenses.

"The United States is the world leader in the numbers of people it 
locks up," Mauer said. "We have just replaced Russia."

The prison population has been rising exponentially since the 1970s. 
Mauer attributed the growth to changes in criminal justice policy 
instead of rising crime. Those polices include the 1980s war on 
drugs, and get-tough policies in the 1990s such as three-strike 
sentencing and mandatory minimums.

"We are sending more people to prison, and we are keeping them there 
for a longer period of time," Mauer said.

Projections by the N.C. Sentencing Commission indicate that at 
current incarceration rates, the state will need 10,000 new prisoner 
beds by 2010.

Forum organizers noted that blacks make up about 59 percent of the 
state's total prison population and 72 percent of people convicted as 
habitual offenders.

"The toll that the criminal justice system is having on the black 
community across the state and nation is unforgivable," said panelist 
Dan Blue, a former speaker of the N.C. House. Blue said violent 
offenders should be treated more severely, along with white-collar 
criminals who wreak substantial economic damage.
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