Date: Wed, 10 May 1995 18:26:48 -0500
Message-Id: <9505102326.AA22278@dsm6.dsmnet.com>
To: drctalk-l@netcom.com
From: carlolsen@dsmnet.com (Carl E. Olsen)
Subject: Just Say No To the War on Drugs

COMMENTARY * CHRISTOPHER FREEMAN

JUST SAY NO TO THE WAR ON DRUGS

Harsh sentences for small-time dealers
and users have gotten us nowhere

In the coming weeks, Governor Terry Branstad will have the opportunity to 
sign a bill requiring those convicted of a second forcible felony to serve 
at least 85 percent of their maximum sentences.
     Buried in that common piece of legislation, however, is a far more 
interesting decree, one that might be called an apology, or an admission of 
guilt.  The bill would waive mandatory minimum sentences for non-violent 
drug offenders.
     Here in Iowa we like to believe that knee-jerk solutions to serous 
problems are the excepfion rather than the rule.  We like to believe that we 
have the decency to face our problems rather than lock them away.
     But things aren't always as they seem.
     Mandatory minimum sentences essentially take the judicial system away 
from the judges and the penal system away from the wardens.  If you're 
convicted of a crime that falls under the mandataries umbrella, you serve 
whatever time the Legislature established.  No good behavior, no parole.
     But what looks good on paper often fails in practice.  A young offender 
with inadequate representation and a clean record is convicted of a 
non-violent drug offense, and thrown into prison with no incentive for moral 
development.  As he rots, violent criminals come and go; nobody dares 
mention he would've been better off raping, robbing or murdering.
     The most recent wave of mandatory legislation began in the early '80s.  
Our leaders decided that drugs -- not poverty, insufficient education, etc. 
-- was the root of crime.  With TV commercials, bumper stickers, T-shirts 
and key chains, they sold it better than Leo Burnett selling Marlboros.  
Everybody knows if it's on TV it must be true.
     If a public servant vows to get tough on crime, make the streets safe 
for our children again, put criminals behind bars where they belong, who'll 
disagree?  It looks good on the evening news, it's sage, and from Council 
Bluffs to Keokuk we buy it.
     But mandatory minimums didn't appear out of nowhere.  They're 
symptomatic of the unstable social and political climate we've created with 
the War on Drugs.  Fear and paranoia have conquered rational discourse.
     Never mind that Iowa has the lowest rate of rape and second lowest 
murder rate in the nation.
     Never mind that Iowa's violent crime rate has always been comparable to 
those of the more civilized European nations.
     Never mind that experts estimate that 6 to 8 percent of all violent 
criminals are responsible for 60 to 80 percent of violent crime.
     As it turns out, the drug war meant we'd spend billions of dollars, 
ignore the Constitution, drive good judges from the bench with insanely 
misguided laws, fill the prisons with small-time dealers or abusers who 
might simply need treatment.  And, in the end, improve nothing.
     According to the Justice Department, from 1982-'92 the average length 
of federal prison sentences for drug offenders increased by about 50 
percent.  The average sentence for violent offenders actually decreased by 
about 34 percent.  In 1992, the average drug offender's sentence was six 
months longer than the average rapist's.
     In Iowa, the rate of prisoners sentenced over the last 20 years has 
risen by about 285 percent -- a rise equal to the national average despite 
far less crime.
     Is that justice?  No, that's the mandatory minimum, the latest casualty 
in a long, banal line of politically popular solutions.  Perhaps someday we 
the people will decide that we want a more perfect union.  For now, however, 
poverty grows, public schools get worse, prisons pop up like Wal-Marts and 
we pay the price -- in every way.
     Let's hope Branstad has the guts to be "soft on crime."

     Christopher Freeman is a freelance writer who lives in Ankeny.

CITYVIEW 4 MAY 10, 1995

Cityview is a weekly newspaper published by Business Publications 
Corporation, an Iowa corporation.  Executive and editorial offices: The 
Depot at Fourth, 100 4th Street, Des Moines, Iowa 50309, (515) 288-3336, FAX 
(515) 288-0309.