During the crack epidemic of the 80/90s murder in the US reached chronic proportions. The mass incarceration for minor drug offences seemed to solve that. Was it worthwhile? I say yes, those who whinge about it need to suggest an alternative?
Drug addicts need therapy not jail. One thing that makes drugs so connected to crime is that it is illegal and requires organized crime. Instead, lets expand and simplify the death penalty for murders, and expand the use of life without parole. Lets increase sentences for violent crime. Some drug users will do crime to support their habit, and we can imprison them for those offenses.
From 1980 to 2001 the U.S. prison population grew from 474,368 to 2,042,476. http://www.justicepolicy.org/images/upload/00-05_rep_punishingdecade_ac.pdf From 1980 to 2018 the crime rate per 100,000 people declined from 5,950.0 to 2,580.1. http://www.disastercenter.com/crime/uscrime.htm By contrast, from 1960 to 1970 the prison population declined by 16,524. During this time the crime rate per 100,000 people increased from 1,887.2 to 3,984.5. In other words it more than doubled. Mass incarceration is one of the few social experiments in the United States that has worked. The high cost of incarceration can be reduced by the thorough exploitation of prison labor, the frequent use of capital and corporal punishment, and the end to educational and recreational opportunities. Rehabilitation is seldom effective. The only factor that reliably reduces recidivism is age.
I was just saying in the car last night that I think it's time for another wave of mass incarceration. I hope alexa was turned off
Until it becomes safe for a beautiful woman to walk through a slum neighborhood and be perfectly safe we should keep herding criminals into prison.
If nothing else, it got a lot of criminal trash off the streets and into 'containment'. The only real problem is that this gutter trash started getting their prison sentences reduced by half, and, many of them stopped being sent to prison at all. They got parole, or nothing at all. And we wonder now why there is so much crime in the fugged-up cities where these rat-herds are allowed to commit every kind of crime imaginable, and not even be caught or charged anymore.... Now, they are becoming 'martyrs' and 'heroes'!
I don't understand why some drugs are illegal. A person should be allowed to do as many drugs as they want to do as they aren't hurting anyone but themselves. They don't get better in jail anyway. They just meet other drug dealers and users and fine tune their craft. The main reason for this is I believe there should NEVER be any time off for good behavior or pardons given to people that murder and/or rape someone. Once convicted, that's it. Never see the light of day again.
Look at who was doing the crime. While addicts might not have been accomplishing the majority of the murders, they were still responsible for a very large portion of the violent crime committed then. Also, focusing on the addicts doesn't address the real violence of the distribution systems that catered to them that were responsible for the murders. And frankly still are in places like Mexico. And while you might feelz for addicts, their habits are what drive the violence both here in this country and around the world as those on the black market attempt to supply the entitlement of those who use because they can.
I really will never understand the myopia of a comment like this. Folks feelz because it's just One guy.... and they utterly ignore the carnage of the world that delivered said drugs to that "one guy"..... The world is being torn down by this trade, it's violence,. Try going to parts of mexico and return alive....
Many drug addicts have records and can't find jobs because they have a record. Additionally, they spend time with hardened criminals in jail which just makes them worse. There is no evidence of any connection between jail and reduced drug use. Its costs taxpayers an average of $30,000 per inmate per year to support a prisoner. It would be equivalent to the inmate stealing $30,000 per year. Add that to the 1 trillion dollar to the drug war so far. Another fact is that by making these drugs illegal, then gangs and criminal organizations supply them. The cartels and gang violence have cost thousands of lives and countless billions. On top of all this, drug use hasn't even declined and has stayed relatively constant. If anything, making drugs illegal make them seem cool and bad to youth. So yeah, I get that drug users commit more crimes, but is criminalization really worth all this?
So your answer is not to have a law? To simply ignore the carnage that illicit drug use creates? How many heroine addicts in say San Fran still die from overdoses, facilitated by the city and they needle exchange service? Is that just "cost of doing business" in a world where these substances can destroy lives so easily? I know the left believes deeply in darwinism... (except when they don't... lots of examples...) but isn't this just a little brutal for the feelz crowd?
My answer is therapy. Putting an addict in jail won't help him. It will just make things worse. If therapy doesn't help, then let him suffer the consequences of his choices and let him destroy his life. Its not Darwinism, its liberty and freedom.
