The purpose of this research is to examine the issue of incarceration of nonviolent drug offenders. The plan of the research will be to set forth an overview of the issue and its pros and cons in general terms, and then to discuss how incarceration of nonviolent drug offenders can best be defended as a matter of public policy. Additionally, the issue will be analyzed with a view toward suggesting the most appropriate advocacy position on it.
Black-letter law does not materially distinguish between the incarceration of violent and nonviolent drug offenders, although in 1996 Arizona and California voted to legalize marijuana for medical uses (Simmons, 1997, p. 111). Possession, sale, and use of illegal drugs is a crime, and in recent years, politicians and public-policy advocates have sought to increase punishment for drug offenders, both violent and nonviolent. Indeed, as a consequence of laws mandating sentences for certain categories of criminal offense, the American prison population is expected to reach about two million by the year 2000, compared to 250,000 in 1972 (Clarke, 1998). Clarke cites statistics showing that the majority (about 70%) of prisoners convicted in state jurisdictions are considered nonviolent offenders, and about 30% of these convictions are related to drugs. Elsewhere, it is reported that diversion from prison and probation into community-service programs, including restitution to crime victims, has reduced the recidivism rate in some jurisdictions, although felony recidivism as a whole ranges from 40% to 60% (Loconte, 1998).
Such numbers, together with arguments that the U.S. ranks only with the former Soviet Union in the scale of its imprisonment policies (Clarke, 1998), are meant to support the idea that nonviolent drug offenders should not be incarcerated but should be placed in some alternative program. Prison overcrowding and the view that incarceration is a punishment all out of proportion to a non...