Mandatory sentences waste millions on drug offenders

Delaware has a chance to pull itself out of a self-destructive pattern of criminal injustice. The Legislature is considering a House Bill 181 to repeal mandatory minimum drug sentencing laws.

Many legislators who originally voted for mandatory minimum sentence laws have seen the error of their ways. We have tried the "lock them up and throw away the key" approach and it has been a disaster. Now our best legislators want to take a more sensible approach.

Mandatory minimum laws force judges to sentence drug offenders to harsh, predetermined prison sentences, with no chance to consider the circumstances of each case or tailor sentences to individuals. Even though drug offenses are crimes without victims, mandatory sentences are often more severe than for people who have physically hurt someone.

Selling drugs occurs between a willing seller and a willing buyer. There is no coercion. Our state prisons are jammed with people who committed no violent crimes, who did not hurt anyone or steal anything. Delaware has the shame of having one of the highest rates of imprisonment in the world, because of mandatory minimum sentence laws.

Makes no difference

In the last 24 years, the number of Delawareans imprisoned has increased by more than four times. Yet the Delaware Statistical Analyses Center reported in 1993, after 12 years of mandatory minimum sentencing, that "there is no evidence that the number of drug crimes or social ills due to illicit drug use have decreased due to Delaware's mandatory drug trafficking law."

Let us use prison for violent criminals and dangerous offenders, not for people who victimized no one and could be sentenced to community rehabilitation.

I am particularly incensed that people are imprisoned for possession of marijuana, a substance that is not harmful compared to alcohol or tobacco, both of which can kill yet are legal, though controlled.

Marijuana should also be legal. We should stop persecuting marijuana smokers and those who sell this harmless substance. Marijuana has never killed anyone. We need tax dollars for health care and education, transportation, environmental protection and social services, not for locking non-violent offenders in expensive prisons. While we don't spend the money for substance abuse treatment for half the inmates who need it, we spend large amounts locking people up. Housing one inmate in a Delaware prison costs up to $26,000 per year.

The proportion of our tax dollars spent on prisons is one of the highest in the nation. Michigan and Pennsylvania repealed many mandatory minimum drug laws and are saving millions of tax dollars per year. For the good of our state, our consciences and the sensible use of tax dollars, I hope Delaware passes H.B. 181.

Desmond M. Kahn lives in Newark.