Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, August 23, 1994 TAG: 9408250072
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A5 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: JAMES D'ENTREMONT AND THOMAS O'BRIEN
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Drug testing of arrestees in major U.S. cities reveals that the majority of those arrested for all crimes are drug users. The U.S. "war" on drugs, a strategy of incarceration for even small-time drug dealers or addicts, has not been effective. Many people in our prisons are there because they are substance abusers, some of whom were forced by addiction to turn to small-time drug dealing. Long jail sentences are not the most cost-effective treatment for drug abusers. Many convicts leave prison unemployable because of their prison record, returning to crime and drug abuse.
We have been filling our prisons with drug offenders. For instance, Vernon Blowe of Richmond, 31, was convicted in June of possession of $400 to $600 worth of cocaine with intent to distribute and sentenced to life in prison.
At the current average cost of $19,420 a year to confine an inmate, Virginia taxpayers will be forced to spend between $400,000 and $600,000 over the next 20 to 30 years to keep Mr. Blowe in prison, without considering the increases due to inflation.
Virginia spends an annual average of $7,937 for each person under correctional supervision, 91 percent higher than the national average. This is because Virginia makes far less use of the much less expensive alternatives to incarceration than other states now do. Rather than long-term jail sentences for those with drug problems, a better solution is to create a system that forces offenders to become productive members of society, working regularly at legitimate jobs and paying taxes like the rest of us.
With the skyrocketing expense that increased incarceration presents, there has been increasing talk of decriminalization. Virginia will obviously not decriminalize any drug other than alcohol anytime soon.
Virginia should, however, consider, "re-criminalizing" drug offenses - instituting new, more effective, criminal sanctions. Virginia should force drug offenders to either rehabilitate or face hard time. To construct a comprehensive program for drug offenders, we should establish a system requiring strict adherence to the following conditions, with constant verification:
First, require offenders to submit to random drug testing, averaging once every two to three weeks, for example.
Second, require them to document continuing, faithful attendance in drug-treatment programs. With infractions resulting in incarceration, these measures would force the offender to remain drug-free.
Third, make all nonviolent offenders face a work requirement - the individual must stay employed full-time or face the alternative of a prison sentence.
For instance, currently unemployed offenders should be required to begin working a minimum of 20 hours a week within, say, 90 days, and employed full-time within, say, 180 days (even if only flipping hamburgers). If the offender is fired for any reason, he or she could be required to find work within 30 or 60 days. If fired repeatedly, the individual would go back behind bars.
If a convicted substance abuser fails to meet any of these guidelines, incarceration would follow.
This type of system is guaranteed to be effective because it gives the nonviolent offender an easy choice: Stay straight or go to jail. At the same time, it relieves the state of the increasing tax burden that incarceration is creating. Mr. Blowe will now cost Virginia taxpayers almost $20,000 a year for the rest of his life sentence; sentencing alternatives such as electronic home monitoring, community-based sentences and intensive supervised probation range between $200 and $4,200 per inmate each year.
If convicted substance-abusers holding full-time jobs under alternative-sentencing programs were forced to defray the costs of supervision and drug treatment from their weekly earnings, such programs would become even cheaper to the law-abiding citizen.
Although this program would allow certain nonviolent offenders an opportunity to reduce their prison time, it would be strict and swift to act when any requirement of the program is breached. This will not only save tax dollars that would otherwise be spent on prison construction and operation, but would free up space to ensure that violent offenders, the criminals that Virginia citizens are most concerned about, stay behind bars.
If we decide to lock up and throw away the key on drug addicts and small-time drug dealers, we will bear a heavy additional tax burden. The General Assembly must generate better long-term solutions for Virginia taxpayers.
James d'Entremont works at Horizon Institute in Charlottesville, where Thomas O'Brien is director for research.
by CNB