Incarceration of Nonviolent Drug Offenders

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 juris

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ll be released having stored a great fund of resentment and may take out their frustrations on the public, which wrongly considers prison rehabilitation and education programs evidence of the "cushiness" of prison life (Clarke, 1998). A similar argument could be made against incarceration of nonviolent drug offenders, whose prison experience could embitter them so much that when they are released they take their bitterness out on society as a whole. But such assertions fail for several reasons. First, they fail to attribute any of the decline in violence since the 1980s to the rise in prison population over the same period. To put it another way, the increased levels of punishment in prison, including the incarceration of so-called nonviolent drug offenders, can be interpreted as an important reason that crime is statistically in decline. To be sure, there have been some reports of success with regard to recidivism involving alternative sentencing programs (Loconte, 1997). It may also be the case that imprisoning nonviolent offenders could lead to frustration and recidivism because of an accumulated "prison mentality," as Wachtler (1997, p. 28) argues. A second reason the assertions against incarceration for nonviolent drug off
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Approximate Pages = 8 (250 words per page)

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