Low Level Drug Offenders

The current system that incarcerates people over and over is unsustainable and does not lower the crime rate nor encourage prisoner reformation. When non-violent, first time offenders are incarcerated alongside violent repeat offenders, their chance of recidivating can be drastically altered by their experience in prison. Alternative sentencing for non-violent drug offenders could alleviate this problem, but many current laws hinder many possible solutions. Recently lawmakers have made attempts to lower the recidivism rates in America, for example the Second Chance Act helps aid prisoners returning into society after incarceration. The act allows states to appropriate money to communities to help provide services such as education, drug treatment programs, mental health programs, job corps services, and others to aid in offenders returning to society after incarceration (Conyers, 2013).

Similarly, other possible drug-related crimes, such as theft, burglary and robbery, are all extremely serious offences which carry severe penalties. However, the imposition of punitive penalties fails to adequately respond to drug-related crime. This is because punitive measures fail to address the complex nature and causes underlying the commission of drug-related offences. It has been found that after release from prison, without accessible, integrated and consistent drug treatment and support such as access to housing and employment, people with substance use issues are at higher risk of re-offending and returning to prison, or dying from a drug overdose.

Similarly, Brown found that in a matched cohort study comparing traditional prison sentencing to drug court programs it was shown that there was significantly less recidivism in the drug court participants than in the offenders that were sentenced to jail or prison time. In this study 137 drug court participants were matched with offenders that had been sentenced traditionally. It was shown that the recidivism rate for drug court participants was only thirty percent, whereas the traditionally sentenced participants had a forty-seven percent recidivism rate. Brown also examined the time between program completion and participants committing a new crime. In the drug court participants, the mean time was 614 days, and in the traditionally sentenced participants the average time was 463 days (Brown,

Fielding et al. (2002) reported that the higher the client’s risk level (based on previous crimes), the more likely that he or she would recidivate, time to new arrest was shorter, and time to new drug arrest was shorter. Again, this study is limited in size and generalizability. Just as important, the authors found that it was cheaper for a client to go through the program than be incarcerated in prison or placed in residential treatment. This analysis is only valid when comparing the cost of incarcerating a client in prison and the costs for a client to participate in the program.

The bureau is constantly trying to improve its treatment for inmates, lowering the number of new inmates, while deceasing the number of inmates who return to prison life. Programs both inside and outside of the federal prison system are conducted in an attempt to understand what is the driving force behind crime. As mentioned previously, one of the largest criminal offenses for inmate incarceration is illegal drug activity, either its manufacture, possession, purchase, sale, or use. Approximately fifty-one percent of inmates are incarcerated due to illegal drug activity. Studies are even conducted to determine how race and ethnicity play a social factor into incarceration due to illegal drug activity.

Drug Addiction : Treatment or Punishment? When a person takes a drug the chemicals affect the brain by interfering with how the neurons send messages. According to the National Institute on Drug Abuse, the structure of Marijuana and Heroin mimic a natural neurotransmitter which tricks the receptors into allowing the drug to activate neurons inside the brain which interferes with messages and leads to abnormalities of behavior. With other drugs such as cocaine there is an abnormally large amount of neurotransmitters released which disrupts communication channels.

Many drug offenders are often forced into the drug business because of economic reasons, resulting from the increased difficulty of finding jobs after prison, due to the felony that is attached to their name. Employers are often discouraged from hiring a person that has committed a felony, because of the uncertainty in their behavior. A study done by the Urban Institute, found that only 45% of all Americans that had been to prison, had a job within a year of being released. It was even lower for drug offenders, as only 25% of all drug offenders in the United States were able to find a job once released (McVay). It’s hard enough finding a well paying job because of the current state of the economy in the United States.

These tactic was utilized by the United States to combat alcohol and drug abuse. Conservatives believe that the experience of prison, along with harsh sentences and punishments for minor crimes, serves to discourage prisoner who are released from breaking the law once again. In 2017, 1 in every 5 people in prison were locked up for a drug offense. 6.7 million people were under correctional supervision as of 2015. 3.7 million are on probation, 2.3 million are in correctional facilities, and 840,000 are on parole.

Drug courts, initially propelled in Florida in 1989, are an arrangement of escalated treatment and supervision. The thought is to treat the instances of peaceful substance-mishandling guilty parties uniquely in contrast to other criminal cases in light of the fact that the dependence is at the base of the criminal action. Accentuation is on recovery instead of discipline. Drug Courts are the best equity intercession for treating drug-dependent individuals the purpose of drug courts is to diminish drug use, lessen wrongdoing, spare cash, and it reestablish lives with sparing more hardship on the kids and reconnecting families together. Drug Courts serve a small amount of the assessed 1.2 million drug dependent individuals presently included in the equity framework.

Over the past 40 years U.S. incarceration has grown at an extraordinary rate, with the United States’ prison population increasing from 320,000 inmates in 1980 to nearly 2.3 million inmates in 2013. The growth in prison population is in part due to society’s shift toward tough on crime policies including determinate sentencing, truth-in-sentencing laws, and mandatory minimums. These tough on crime policies resulted in more individuals committing less serious crimes being sentenced to serve time and longer prison sentences. The 1970s-1980s: The War on Drugs and Changes in Sentencing Policy Incarceration rates did rise above 140 persons imprisoned per 100,000 of the population until the mid 1970s.

Only 18.3% (337,882) were for the sale or manufacture of a drug” (p. 23). Therefore, the individuals who are likely to enter the already overcrowded prisons may be users and the actual not distributors themselves. Thus, prison space that is intended to be reserved for murders and sexual predators is instead being occupied by substance

(Wormer, Persson, 2010). This program would save the communities a lot of money and help out the families of the person who is in trouble. Not all people who commit drug related crimes would qualify but people who would be facing long prison time. This would be for first time offenders who have not committed violent crimes. They would get treatments such as cognitive behavior therapy, drug treatments and be under the very intense supervision of the drug court.

With the economy in the turmoil that it is in America cannot continue to support these sentencing guidelines. The Mandatory Article Sentencing declares that the laws are becoming a huge drain on the Justice Bureau’s budget, and in 2012 the United States had far beyond more people incarcerated than any other country. Most of these prisoners are low-level drug offenders sentenced under mandatory sentencing guidelines with a cost draining on American taxpayers $6.8 billion a year, as of 2012. These costs do not seem to have a ceiling and continue eating up about twenty-five percent of the federal justice system’s yearly budget.

In 2000, U.S. agencies surpassed the $100-billion-a-day barrier in spending to incarcerate individuals with serious addiction problems. Rehabilitating and managing offenders who misuse alcohol has proven to be extraordinarily difficult. Despite traditional sanctions and ever-increasing terms of incarceration, addiction drives many of these offenders to continue committing crimes, resulting in a revolving door. Alcohol- and drug-involved offenders are overwhelming the criminal justice system, creating unwieldy court dockets, burdensome caseloads, and overcrowded jails and prisons. Yet, programs and sanctions have had little impact on the rate of alcohol-involved crime.

The War on Drugs and Mass Incarceration The United States incarcerates at a higher rate than any other country in the world. In fact, the U.S. alone is home to 25% of the world’s prison population; this, however, wasn’t always the case. The rapid growth of the U.S. prison population can be traced two decades back to the declaration of the War on Drugs by President Ronald Regan in the early eighties and previously mentioned by President Richard Nixon. In an effort to reassure White Americans’ of their elite positioning in the underlying racial caste system in a time where inner-city communities were facing major economic collapses, the Regan administration called for the reinforcement of the sale, distribution, and consumption of illicit drugs,