Pubdate: Mon, 09 Apr 2001
Source: Deseret News (UT)
Copyright: 2001 Deseret News Publishing Corp.
Contact:  http://www.desnews.com/
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/prison.htm (Incarceration)

RIDDING SOCIETY OF DRUG ABUSE

Alternative sentencing is not a new concept. It has been tried with varying 
degrees of success by courts nationwide in recent years.

The unique thing about a Utah program being tried in Davis and Weber 
counties, however, is that it is aimed solely at drug offenders who violate 
their paroles. Rather than automatically sending them to prison, the 
program gives them treatment for their addictions while it hands out 
sentences that include community service or a few days in the local county 
jail, which is far less intensive than the state penitentiary. In one 
recent case, a judge ordered violators to write essays on the importance of 
drug treatment.

As the administrative coordinator for the Board of Pardons and Parole said, 
the program throws open the "old debate over whether drug use is a sickness 
or a crime." Frankly, it can be both. While there is nothing wrong with the 
state seeking alternatives that actually persuade drug users to quit, it 
cannot afford to begin sending a message that drug abuse is anything less 
than a crime that menaces society.

Illegal drugs cause harm. Even the drug users who are not themselves 
violent are implicitly connected with the violence and harm that 
accompanies the drug from its manufacture to the moment it reaches their 
hands. This harm ranges from the poverty that spreads through Third World 
countries, where cartels force farmland to be used for drug-related crops 
rather than food, to the violent gang culture that invades many U.S. cities.

In addition, the drugs cause irreparable harm to their users, and these 
often are young people enticed with lies. To decriminalize such a scourge 
would be an outrage. The same could be said for anything that sends a 
message to potential users that the crime carries no real punishment.

However, it is true that society gains little from throwing nonviolent drug 
users into a cell surrounded by hardened criminals. The focus ought to be 
on rehabilitation. Unfortunately, that often is much easier to say than to 
do. Many users defy rehabilitation. No program can succeed unless it can 
spark a will to change.

Alternative sentences often try to induce this change through shame or 
through the tonic of service. Both can work well under the right 
circumstances. But there have been some notable failures. Usually, these 
are associated with attempts to shame.

For example, in St. George a few years ago, a judge ordered a 22-year-old 
man to post a sign outside his house announcing he was a convicted drug 
dealer. This was added onto a sentence of 36 months probation. His parents 
were so embarrassed by the sign that they kicked him out of their house.

In Wilkesboro, N.C., a judge ordered a woman who had killed someone in a 
drunken-driving accident to parade around the courthouse for an hour at a 
time with a sign reading, "I am a convicted drunk driver, and as a result I 
took a life."

Neither sentence was likely to return the abuser to productive use in 
society. Nor, for that matter, is a sentence to write an essay. However, 
judges ought to be free to try such things.

Nearly a quarter of all Utah prisoners today are incarcerated for drug 
crimes. Virtually all of them will be released some day. If the pilot 
program in Weber and Davis counties can successfully keep these people from 
returning to their crimes, it ought to be expanded. But it should be done 
carefully so as not to send the wrong message.
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