I'm Just Sayin'

A maggot walks into a stop and rob, pulls out a gun and tells the clerk to hand over all the money in the cash register. The clerk obeys and hands over the money. Then the maggot shoots the clerk and runs away...... this recently happened in Mytown, USA. It recently happened in Yourtown, USA. So we all shake our heads and mutter to ourselves...or maybe out loud..."what's this world coming to? I hope they catch that maggot." 

The question we should be asking ourselves, rather than pondering what the world has become, is why it has become what it is. The reason the maggot in the fictional but all too real account I've just quoted was able to commit the described robbery and shooting is because he was not in prison. The reason he was supposed to be in prison is because he has a history of armed robberies. He has a history of violent behavior stemming from his early teens. He has been in jail more than 15 times and in prison 3 times and he is only 20 years old. The reason he was released (paroled) from his latest sentence...one of 7 to 10 years...? After serving 15 months, it was determined that he was "fit" to be given another chance. He had been a "good" inmate. The real reason he was paroled was to make room for more inmates. He was taking up cell space needed to house another repeat offender...only this time, in this hypothetical scenario, the repeat offender was a repeat drug user who had never harmed anyone but himself. And so, the arrest and incarceration of a pot smoker or a crack head started a chain of events that led to the murder of a store clerk in a stop and rob in Anytown, USA.  

About a third of all inmates in our state and federal prisons are non-violent drug users. As we put them in those  prisons, we are forced to make room for them by releasing other inmates...some of them are violent offenders. This makes absolutely no sense to me nor can it make any sense to any person of rational thought. The argument that drug users harm society as a whole is a valid point of view, but the debate should be not how much damage the drug users do to society, but rather what we can do reduce drug use. Certainly putting them, the drug users, behind bars doesn't accomplish this and it recycles violent offenders back into our midst. We can offer them free treatment or even insist upon their acceptance of treatment. No treatment works unless the drug user is willing to cooperate and this is true in every single case and type of addiction.

If we have decided to retaliate against all who do harm to themselves...so we can reduce the harm that is done to society, we must also retaliate against all who do harm to themselves in any way and in any fashion. Cigarette smokers, alcohol use abusers, over eaters, under eaters, those with poor dietary habits, couch potatoes, prescription drug abusers....and on and on. Oh wait, what about those of us who live in or near large cities with poor air quality. Let's pass a law that people who live in L.A. or Atlanta must wear air filtering masks. Yes and those who sit by a pool or go to the beach, no sun screen equals jail time. We would have to fine those who don't get enough rest, those who don't drink enough water and those who drink un-filtered water.

If we want to reduce our crime rate....and I am talking about real crime..then we must focus our efforts on the real criminals and not those who we have merely named as criminals because we don't approve of what they do to themselves...with drug use or other substance abuse. In a real sense, by making the use of certain drugs illegal, we are encouraging the crimes of robbery and burglary and muggings because the cost of illegal substances is very expensive due to the fact that they are illegal. In our efforts to protect ourselves from ourselves, we have initiated an increased rate of real crime.

The debate about crime, it's cause and ways to reduce it, must include the reality check of truthful inquiry into the policy of defining drug use as a criminal activity rather than just another unhealthful activity.