Attorney General Eric Holder announced yesterday what he called “a fundamentally new approach” in the federal prosecution of low-level drug offenders which will reduce the number of people charged in the first place and, by and large, spare first-time, non-violent offenders of the draconian sentences that have been a feature of the criminal justice landscape for the 27 years I have been practicing law.
The statistics are mind-boggling. According to today’s New York Times, there are 1.57 million Americans in state and federal prisons, which is an increase of more than 500 percent since the late 1970s, at a cost of $80 billion annually. The federal system alone holds 219,000 inmates (40 percent above its capacity), in large measure because of strict sentencing guidelines and mandatory minimum sentences. Almost half of all prison inmates are serving time for drug-related crimes.
There is no question that there are some people who simply have to be locked up as a matter of public safety. But, finally, it appears that sanity may begin to play a role in the justice system as it pertains to low-level, non-violent offenders.
Perhaps we could take a lesson (or two) from Portugal which famously decriminalized the possession of ALL drugs in 2001, treating users as people with a treatable illness rather than as criminals. Critics screamed that drug use would skyrocket and that Portugal would become a mecca for drug use and sales. What happened? The number of addicts was reduced by a half, and the rates of drug-related diseases and overdoses have gone down even more.
I don’t pretend that we don’t have a drug problem in this country. What is clear is that the current system of punishment isn’t having the desired effect.