These statistics only exist when pro-legalization people "cook the books."
In New York State, at least, the "non-violent drug offenders" in prison tend to actually be people who are in for second, third or even fourth offenses, and often have histories of violent crime in their records.
These statistics only exist when pro-legalization people "cook the books." In New York State, at least, the "non-violent drug offenders" in prison tend to actually be people who are in for second, third or even fourth offenses, and often have histories of violent crime in their records.
Interesting viewpoint. However, it appears that the Florida Department of Corrections disagrees with you (in part). Here is a posting on the Official Florida Department of Corrections website, which states:
" In fiscal year 89-90, 36.1 percent of all admissions to prison were admitted for a drug related crime. Over 16,000 inmates walked through the gates with a drug charge as the primary offense. Some of these inmates were recommitted two and three times during the same year because they were released early by the "Control Release Authority" (Parole Commission). They were considered low risk offenders in comparison to the prison population. In some cases, violent offenders were released early to make room for the new admission of a non-violent drug offender. This criminal justice policy clearly made no sense."
Now, this is an official statement (its posted on their website!), made by a prison system under a Republican administration run by the brother of President Bush. This tends to disagree with you (that is, it specifically states that "violent offenders were released to make room for non-violent drug offenders"). However, note that they are describing a period of time just over a decade ago.
Why are they posting this? Because they next point out that:
"The last fiscal year (96-97), only 22.6 percent of all admissions to prison had a drug charge as their primary offense, which was less than 5,000 inmates. This was down from over 16,000 inmates in fiscal year 89-90. Although felony adult drug arrests and drug admissions to community supervision have remained fairly constant during the last six years, drug admissions to prison have decreased dramatically, thereby saving valuable prison beds for violent and predatory offenders. It is vital that the Florida Legislature continues to provide funding for community-based programs and funding for a balanced criminal justice policy. Community-based outpatient programs operate at a fraction of the cost of new prison construction and extant prisons. Also, over the last six years, residential treatment programs have proven to be very cost effective."
Hmmm. It appears that the Florida prison system under Jeb Bush thinks that locking up people who are non-violent drug offenders is expensive and inefficient. Thus they are using alternative programs.
To your point - in Florida, at least, they are trying to use the prisons for violent offenders. And since they have built more prison space, I suspect they are not having to release "dirtbags" to house these people. Thus the viewpoint that "dirtbags" are released to house non-violent offenders appears to have been true in the past but at least in Florida is no longer true.
Interesting, isn't it? I think that your view of "pro-legalization" people may be uncharitable - they were correct in the past, but due to increased prison building today and usage of programs like these in Florida, they are no longer correct. Yet I would not call them "book-cooking" - just not up to date.