Imprisonment of Nonviolent Drug Offenders
This is an excerpt from the paper...
This paper is a discussion of the question of whether or not nonviolent drug offenders should continue to be imprisoned. Since the early 20th century, the use of narcotics and other controlled substances has been seen as evil, destructive, and morally reprehensible, and the national anti-drug policy that has slowly evolved since then has developed into a war on drugs that usually leads to prison. With the institution of mandatory sentencing, the possession, use, and sale of illicit drugs has come to account for a significant portion of all arrests and convictions, at a considerable cost to the legal system. Yet harsh penalties have not resulted in a substantial reduction in drug use and have instead filled already overcrowded prisons with offenders whose principal crime has been against themselves. While the majority of Americans oppose legalizing drugs, other solutions, especially the establishment of drug courts and treatment options, may provide better responses to the growing problem. The current system does not appear to deal effectively with widespread drug abuse. This paper argues that incarceration is not the best response or the most effective use of resources in these cases.Until the early 20th century, drug use went unregulated in the United States. Individuals who so wished could buy and use opium, cocaine, heroin, marijuana, and other drugs for whatever purposes they wished. Many narcotics were added in small quantities to popular nostrums and preparatio
. . .
entences for certain offenses, providing a uniform response to all drug convictions as inherently unacceptable. They were originally tried in the early 1950s and eventually phased out around 1970 when they caused massive prison overcrowding.
Ignoring history, Congress reinstituted mandatory sentences for federal drug offenses in 1986, and many states followed suit in their own courts. Sentences are based on the amount of certain drugs in possession at the time of arrest; on the federal level, sentences begin at five years with no possibility of parole for possession of one gram of LSD (which can include the weight of the paper on which the drug is affixed), five grams of crack cocaine, and various amounts of other substances. State sentences are usually based on whether the conviction is for a first offense or a subsequent offense, and, for a first offense, can be as high in some states as 20 years and up to one million dollars.
Susan Neiburg Terkel (1997) points out the disparities this can cause:
Anyone arrested for possession of a small amount of marijuana in New Hampshire, which decriminalized marijuana possession, is fined one thousand dollars. In contrast, anyone arrested for possessing the same amount of marijuana i
. . .
Some common words found in the essay are:
DEA Overview, Institute Justice, Neiburg Terkel, , Workers Compensation, United Individuals, John Belushi, Tax Act, Harrison Act, Shine Mauer, drug offenders, terkel 1997, nonviolent drug offenders, mandatory sentences, drug courts, nonviolent drug, crimes considered, illicit drug, april 21, drug abuse, overview 1999, 199 april 21, wren 199 april, 1999 june 6, drug enforcement administration,
Approximate Word count = 1627
Approximate Pages = 7 (250 words per page)
More Essays on Imprisonment of Nonviolent Drug Offenders
|
Customer Service
to Over
32,000 Professionally Written Papers!!!
