Drug Legalization would put an end to prison overcrowding
Prison overcrowding is a serious and persistent problem. It makes the prison environment, violent and faceless to begin with, even more dangerous and dehumanizing.
According to the 1988 Statistical Abstract of the United States, between 1979 and 1985 the number of people in federal and state prisons and local jails grew by 57.8 percent, nine times faster than the general population.
Governments at all levels keep building more prisons, but the number of prisoners keeps outpacing the capacity to hold them. According to the Federal Bureau of Prisons' 1985 Statistical Report, as of September 30 of that year federal institutions held 35,959 prisoners-41 percent over the rated prison capacity of 25,638. State prisons were 114 percent of capacity in 1986.
Legalizing drugs would immediately relieve the pressure on the prison system, since there would no longer be "drug offenders" to incarcerate. And, since many drug users would no longer need to commit violent or property crime to pay for their habits, there would be fewer "real" criminals to house in the first place. Instead of building more prisons, we could pocket the money and still be safer.
Removing the 9487 drug inmates would leave 26,472. Of those, 7200 were in for assault, burglary, larceny-theft, or robbery. If the proportion of such crimes that is related to drugs is 40 percent, without drug laws another 2900 persons would never have made it to federal prison. The inmates who remained would be left in a less cruel, degrading environment. If we repealed the drug laws, we could eventually
Drug legalization would free up police resources to fight crimes against people and property.
The considerable police efforts now expended against drug activity and drug-related crime could be redirected toward protecting innocent people from those......
