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(This site was last updated on May 27, 2008.) Synopsis: The policies associated with our nation's "War on Drugs", in particular the lengthy mandatory minimum sentences for drug crimes, have caused much more harm than good, and should be done away with. Regrettably however, there are very strong interest groups in this country that will resist any movement to reform our current drug laws. Nonetheless I firmly believe that change is possible and fully within our means, all that is needed is for enough people to care and take action- please see the links in the section below where I discuss the three-fold solution of Justice, Reform, and Treatment. Forfeiting the Moral High-Ground Some 23-year old men, in their free time, enjoy going to bars, or to baseball games, and getting so drunk that they can't talk properly, or walk in a straight line. This activity is perfectly legal. The government of the United States of America will do nothing whatsoever to prevent these young men from engaging in these activities, nor will it punish them in any way for doing so. Another 23-year old man, in his free time, enjoyed going to rock concerts, and dancing the night away while his consciousness was altered by the drug LSD. He also sold LSD to other "Deadheads", who similarly enjoyed the shows as he had. All of this took place over 15 years ago. This young man is now 39, and he has spent the past 15 years in jail, and, unless some major change in U.S. policy occurs, he will also spend the entire rest of his life in jail, as this is the sentence he was given for his offense. There is no possibility of parole, because it was a federal crime, and currently there is no parole in the federal penal system. He will never go to another rock concert, or go to college, or get a job (well- not one that pays more than minimum wage, I should say- more on that later...) He will never get married, or have children, or own his own home, or go on vacations to explore different parts of the world, or do volunteer work to help those less fortunate in his community, or vote. I'm not asking you to condone the things he did over 15 years ago- I don't need to go anywhere near that far, to show that there is something rather profoundly wrong with this situation. The only thing that I'm asking you to contemplate is, is the punishment that he is receiving for his actions, a just one? If you were somehow magically to receive exclusive, absolute power to determine what his sentence should be, what would be the sentence that you would you choose to give to him? Would your decision also be the same as the Government's was- to never ever allow this man to walk the Earth again as a free man, for as long as he lived? Some additional facts about his case are that he never at any time engaged in any violent activity, and never even had any weapons. His absolute non-violent nature and respect for life is so deep actually that it extends to animals as well, as he will not put any animal products at the end of his fork (he's vegan.) I would also like to point out that LSD is not an addictive drug (unlike alcohol- please see Attachment A, for support of this. VERY IMPORTANT NOTE: The ONLY REASON I mention this is as something to take into consideration when contemplating the fairness of this person's sentence. Please, please, PLEASE, for the love of all that is holy, DO NOT INTERPRET THIS AS AN ENDORSEMENT OR ENCOURAGEMENT TO TAKE LSD, OR ANY OTHER DRUG!!! ) When the Government elects to incarcerate an individual, it presumably does this meaning to act on the "right side", i.e., punishing someone for committing an act which is somehow evil, and protecting society from something which is potentially dangerous. However what is also critical to consider here is that if the punishment is so extreme, so grossly out of proportion in relation to the crime that was committed, then has the Government in essence "forfeited the moral high ground" in such a case? In a nutshell, which side really becomes the "evil" one here? If the answer is "the Government", then we, the people, the makers of the Government, are responsible. I believe that the citizens of the United States are collectively guilty for this injustice. The "Deadhead" that I discussed above is named Timothy Tyler, or now also courtesy of Uncle Sam, #99672-012. There are literally thousands more like him all across the country today. Thanks to the wisdom and mercy of President Clinton, the tragedy for three women among these thousands was greatly lessened shortly before the end of his term. Amy Ralston Pofahl was originally sentenced to 24 years for "conspiracy to manufacture and distribute" the drug Ecstasy (when really the one behind all of the conspiring and manufacturing and distributing was her ex-husband in Germany), but fortunately for her she was granted clemency by Clinton on July 7, 2000 (but rather unfortunately, she had already served 9 YEARS of her sentence before finally receiving clemency. Her ex-husband by the way received a 6 year sentence in Germany, and was freed after serving 4 years of it. The only law that Amy ever actually technically violated was money laundering, because she obtained the bail money for her ex after he was arrested from a location that he told her about, which turned out to be where he hid the profits from his drug sales.) Kemba Smith and Dorothy Gaines were released from prison on December 22, 2000 by the former president. Kemba Smith was sentenced to 24 years for "conspiracy to distribute crack cocaine", yet she had no previous criminal record whatsoever, she never handled or used the cocaine herself, and what minor involvement she did have in the operation she was coerced into doing by her violently abusive boyfriend. Dorothy Gaines, single mother of 3 children, was sentenced to 19 years for "conspiracy to possess and distribute crack cocaine", and in all likelihood this woman was completely innocent of any sort of criminal activity. There was absolutely no material evidence against her (no actual drugs, no large amounts of cash, and no drug paraphernalia were ever found.) The conviction was based exclusively on the testimony of others, some of whom were themselves defendants in the same case! She was hence a victim of the new "snitch culture" which has emerged as a result of our nation's present drug laws. The legislators who drafted the guidelines for mandatory minimum sentencing for drug crimes allegedly intended these excessively harsh sentences to be leveled against the kingpins of drug rings. However, in actual practice the top level players are very rarely the ones who get the stiff sentences, because they can afford the better lawyers, and they take whatever measures necessary to avoid the lengthy jail time, which usually amounts to cutting deals with the prosecutors to trade information for reduced sentences. Thus, the people with the least information to bargain with (i.e. the "small fry") are the ones who end up getting the longest sentences- resulting in the exact opposite of the supposed intention of these laws. This phenomenon is fully outlined in the excellent recent PBS Frontline documentary, "Snitch". The stories of the release of these three women are marvelous and uplifting, in that they prove that Truth and Reason can eventually triumph over Nonsense and Hysteria, and they represent hope for the multitude of others remaining behind bars today who are just as deserving of their freedom. Sharvone McKinnon, a hardworking mother and gainfully employed school-bus driver at the time of her arrest, was initially given a life sentence merely for allegedly being present at a single "organizational meeting" of her boyfriend's drug ring (her sentence was later reduced to 20 years.) Clarence Aaron, a 23-year old college student at the time of his arrest with no prior criminal record, received a life sentence without the possibility of parole, simply for introducing two friends of his to each other, and the two then proceeded to arrange a drug deal in Clarence's presence, although Clarence was not involved in the actual deal (in other words, Clarence's only involvement in the crime was arranging and witnessing this meeting.) Loren Pogue, real estate agent, missionary, Air Force veteran, co-founder of a home for orphans, father of 27 children, (15 of them adopted), Mason, Shriner, and a member of the Lions Club, the VFW, and the American Legion, received a 22 year sentence, even though he never bought, sold, smuggled, used, held, or even saw any drugs. What happened was merely this: a part-time employee of his pleaded with him for his assistance in closing the sale of a plot of land in Costa Rica, and he complied with this request. This employee however also happened to be a government informant- a disgraced, debt-ridden former policeman who was given $250,000 by the Drug Enforcement Agency to set up a sting to try to snare Latin American drug dealers. What the ex-cop did instead though was set up Mr. Pogue. When Pogue met the alleged buyers of the land (who were in fact undercover agents) they told him that they wanted this land so that they could build an airstrip on it, for the purpose of transporting cocaine into the U.S. Now since they tricked Pogue into believing that the buyers were major drug traffickers, he quite understandably became terrified, fearing what they might do to him if he didn't comply. He also happened to be familiar with this particular parcel of land, and knew that it would be nearly impossible to build an airstrip on it, since it was on a rocky, steep hillside with a view of the Pacific Ocean (and indeed, there never was going to be any airstrip built on it, since after all this entire scenario was a fabrication!) Thus, these were the factors which contributed to the decision of this fine, honorable, upstanding, successful man to complete the deal. Pogue was nonetheless arrested and subsequently convicted for carrying out the sale of land that the government agents said would be used for illegal activity, and his sentence was based on the amount of hypothetical drugs that the agents claimed they would route to the U.S. via this hypothetical airstrip. From Punishment to Persecution If these sentences seem idiotic to you, it is because they were in fact arrived at without any thinking- the sentences were not determined by careful examination by the judges of all of the myriad individual aspects of each case- the way things ought to be (i.e., whether it was a first time offense, whether there was any violent activity associated with the offense, etc.), but rather, these absurd sentences were spat out by brainless formulas. This is the direct consequence of the mandatory minimum sentencing laws passed by Congress in 1986 under The Anti Drug Abuse Act, in a hasty reaction to the death by cocaine overdose of the Boston Celtics basketball star Len Bias. The laws were pushed through in a mere matter of weeks, with no research done at all, and no experts (i.e. judges, members of the Bureau of Prisons, or any other government office) consulted. Similarly throughout the 1970s and 1980s, many state legislatures also passed laws which forced judges to hand out fixed sentences without parole for drug offenses, based solely on the weight (or alleged weight) of the drug involved, regardless of the person's role in the offense or other mitigating factors. (And because of this, outraged and frustrated judges have been lambasting these laws for years- please click to the following link to see a collection of numerous dissenting opinions of federal judges.) So far I've only mentioned a few individual cases- but what has been the cumulative toll on our nation of these laws over the past 20 years? The statistics are horrifying: the Bureau of Prisons budget has increased by more than 1,954%, from $220 million in 1986 to about $4.3 billion in 20011. In 1985, our incarceration rate was 313 per 100,000 population. By 2001, the rate rose to 686 per 100,000, which is 3 to 10 times higher than rates of the other modern democratic societies. In 1980, there were about 50,000 men and women in prison for violating drug laws, and by 1997 there were about 400,0002. 84% of the increase in state and federal prison admissions since 1980 was accounted for by nonviolent offenders3. And the following set of figures speaks for itself4:
(Please see Attachment B, for the sources corresponding to all of the footnotes in this essay.) Women have been very adversely affected by these laws, as can be seen from a study of prisons done by Amnesty International in 1999 (please see in particular, section III "PROFILE OF WOMEN IN PRISONS AND JAILS", and the sub-sections "Women's crimes" and "The Impact of the War on Drugs".) Minority communities have also been hit especially hard by this scourge. According to results of research conducted by Human Rights Watch released in June, 2000, although white drug users outnumber black drug users 5-to-1, black men are being sent to state prisons on drug charges at a rate of about 13 times that of white men. Given these alarming facts, isn't it time we questioned whether punishment has transmogrified into persecution? I don't know how things are where you live, but in my part of the U.S. (S.F./ Bay Area) I see homeless people wandering the streets of the cities here all the time. Many of these unfortunates I see pushing shopping carts have clearly lost their minds, and I wonder, how can we manage to find the money (over $26,000 per inmate per year!! 5), to keep thousands of non-violent drug offenders behind bars, but we can't seem to be able to find the money to keep the mentally ill in hospitals where they can be in a safe environment, receive showers, and be given clean clothes to wear, and wholesome, regular meals? The Root of All Evil It is said that the love of money is the root of all evil. If that is true then if a situation is evil, then somewhere there must exist some essential connection to money. Attachment C outlines the wages which the prisoners earn as employees of the factories inside of the prisons ("Unicor" is the name of the company which runs these factories.) I received the piece of paper shown in Attachment C in the mail from a prisoner that I have written to (the bit of typing on the paper is his.) He fell prey to an entrapment scheme arranged by law enforcement officials, and was thus given a 33 year sentence for methamphetamine related charges, 11 years of which he has already served. I have also been "pen-pals" with Timothy Tyler for the last 8 years, and he also had a job with Unicor (he quit his Unicor job four years ago.) Here is what Tim said about Unicor, back when he was still working for them (the following sentences were copied word for word from one of his letters): "I don't have to ask my family for any money. That is one good thing. I do realize that by working in Unicor, even though I work in an office, I am helping them. They make millions of dollars off of the products that they sell. This enables them to keep making harder drug laws so that they have a steady amount of people to run these prison industries. I guess the smart thing would be for me to quit but then my income goes away. I think I will stay there for now though." I checked Unicor's official website, and found that it was quite true that Unicor makes millions of dollars (click the following to see the figures from one of Unicor's recent annual reports.) Considering what the prisoners are being paid, and that it's required by law that the U.S. Government purchase products made in the prison factories, you'd think they'd better manage to turn a good profit. (Because Unicor is completely owned by the government though, then at least in theory, it is the taxpayer who ultimately benefits.) There is also a private entity which has profited handsomely from the Drug War, and thus has a very strong interest in seeing to it that it is maintained with the fullest possible force, and that is naturally the prison building industry. In California for example, between 1984 to 1996, 21 new prisons were built.6 This is a major reason why these policies are kept in place, in spite of the fact that they squander billions of taxpayer dollars, destroy the lives of thousands of people, devastate minority communities, and don't do diddley-squat in terms of alleviating the actual drug problems that we have in our country. So, what do we do about this? I suggest the following 3 things: the first 2 address the folly of attacking our drug problems from the "supply side" through draconian inflexible sentencing, which in addition to being morally questionable, has also proven to be utterly ineffective (as measures of the lack of success of our current approach, the availability of drugs to kids and drug usage among kids has increased, street prices for drugs have decreased, and the purity of illegal drugs has increased- all since the enactment of mandatory minimum sentencing laws- please see the speech given to the House Committee on Appropriations by Eric Sterling, president of the Criminal Justice Policy Foundation, for the precise numbers regarding these trends.) My third point below represents a shift away from the lousy old "supply side" approach, to the novel, more sensible "demand side" approach. 1. JUSTICE- for those who are currently languishing in jail, serving unjustly long sentences. Clarence Aaron is currently in the process of trying to obtain clemency from President Bush, as Amy Pofahl, Kemba Smith, and Dorothy Gaines were able to obtain from President Clinton. Please visit the following link, to join the petition drive in support of clemency for this man: Clarence Aaron's clemency petition. Also, a federal parole bill is currently "in the works" (titled "The Federal Release Revision Act of 2008"), to help to revive the parole system for federal prisoners (click here for more details regarding this proposed legislation, and to find out what actions you can take to support this bill.) 2. REFORM- of the existing laws, so that no more people get nailed with these cruel sentences in the future. There is a weekly news bulletin distributed by e-mail, put out by the Drug Reform Coordination Network, that is free to sign up for. I've been on their mailing list for the past 6 years, and I've found their work to be very impressive- they cover relevant news items and Congressional actions with careful scrutiny, and through their letter writing campaigns I've seen how they've successfully managed to thwart additional damaging "Drug War" legislation. 3. TREATMENT- for nonviolent drug addicts, rather than incarceration. To my fellow citizens of California, THANK YOU, for voting on November 7, 2000 for the passage of the Substance Abuse and Crime Prevention Act of 2000, a.k.a. Proposition 36, which allows for drug treatment programs for certain nonviolent drug possession offenses (so this does not apply to offenses involving the production or sale of illegal substances- in other words this will only affect those who are strictly nonviolent addicts, not the dealers), in lieu of jail time. A study by the RAND Corporation in 1994 found that every additional dollar invested in substance abuse treatment saves taxpayers $7.46 in societal costs. and that additional domestic law enforcement efforts cost 15 times as much as treatment to achieve the same reduction in societal costs7. Prison is a positively terrible environment for an addict, because so oddly enough, prisoners can get drugs while in prison! For what other reason would they need to have inmates undergo regular drug testing? This ironic state of affairs is made possible by the fact that some of the prison guards are corrupt (this is the age-old problem of "Who watches the Watchers?") Anyone who has ever tried to quit cigarette smoking should be able to garner some degree of sympathy in their hearts for what these people are going through. And as to sympathizing with why people choose to try these drugs in the first place which are known to be dangerous and addictive, I offer you the words in Attachment D (in particular, please note the 3 paragraphs that I have circled) from Sister Mary Rose McGeady, who ran a crisis center for homeless teens. If anyone is qualified to speak as an expert authority on this topic, it would be her. I received this letter in the mail as part of fundraising efforts for her organization, Covenant House. So for all you folks outside of California, I urge you to support any similar measures which may be introduced where you live. One final note regarding this California initiative- please see the following DRCNet article about Prop 36, in particular the discussion of how this proposition faced strong opposition from the prison guards' union in California. Thus the forces against reform that I referred to earlier are not some hypothetical conspiracies out of my imagination- they are quite real, and their power should not be underestimated. Why I wrote this: My interest in this whole issue of drug law reform comes from a human rights perspective, and I have definitely come to regard these totally inappropriate punishments that are being dished out in drug cases as a legitimate human rights issue. I think it is very important to emphasize the human rights aspect of this situation, because I believe that for far too long, politicians and their constituents have been afraid to touch those laws, out of fears that it may send the wrong "message", in particular to our youth, but this is a bogus excuse. Imagine if the brains of all members of Congress were possessed by alien beings one day, and as a result they passed a law which administered the death penalty to anyone who drove above the speed limit- and then imagine that this law remained intact for years and years and years, because people feared that any attempts at revoking it would send a signal to young people that it was O.K. to drive too fast- as if all the people executed under such an insane law "didn't count"- as if those people had no rights. There's lots of things that we don't want young people doing, so we EDUCATE them- rather than bankrupt our entire criminal justice system! I believe that the one and only message that drug law reform would send to our children is that the American people are a people committed to honoring justice, the Constitution, and human rights, period. The "War on Drugs", like Social Security, is an issue which has been regarded by our elected officials as a political "third rail"- they currently believe that touching upon the subject of drug law reform will make them appear "soft on crime" and "soft on drugs". Thus it is up to us, the voters who put these people in office, to let them know that we recognize that these policies have been a complete failure- by writing letters of protest to them, and to the editors of newspapers and magazines. Do not forget the economic incentives that certain influential groups have for retaining these harsh drug laws. I can guarantee you that this mess will not go away all by itself- please do your part today!!! My e-mail address is carynsfsp@yahoo.com, and I welcome any intelligent discussion regarding this subject, i.e., don't just make unsubstantiated declarations, such as something like, "I can't go along with what you're saying because it's just plain crazy and that's it." If there's one thing I can't stand almost as much as injustice, is it's when people don't even make so much as a pretense at an effort at rational thought. Notice how I have offered support for my statements, please preserve this trend. NO FLAMES!!!!!!! NO HATE MAIL!!!!!!!!!!! Also, if anyone has any messages for Tim Tyler that they would like me to pass along to him, I'd be glad to. |
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| [Note: The views expressed in this essay are solely those of the author (Caryn Graves), and are not associated in any way with the views of The Rainforest Site.] |
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A great site with many resources for both prisoners and the general public: |
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Drugs resources - directory of Drugs related websites. |