Sentencing Reform in Kentucky, Addiction and Drugs
One interest that has emerged from my prison ministry is the imprisoning disaster we are creating and ignoring in Kentucky. We have filled our jails, particularly small county ones, with jail offenders. Some, in Eastern Ky, built to hold 150 are now housing 600. We are trying to control the exploding drug problem by punishing the addicts.
It is a human disaster that is affecting many and few seem to care. We need to examine sentencing reform, as a few other states are doing. Moreover, the counties are making money on these numbers: the state is paying them because the state correctional system cannot handle them. So there is no incentive to change. The larger numbers in the county jails, the more money the county earns for its other financial needs. Crowded jails are money-makers for local officials. Yes. Believe it or not.
Today I met with Dr. Robert Lawson, Law Professor at UK, who is completing a long study of the problem for a law journal, which paper has already received some pre-publicity interest via the Louisville Courier-Journal. Lawson was one of the authors of the original sentencing code completed in the early 70s and enacted in 1975. Society has greatly changed since then, and he
is gathering information on actual conditions and wants to start another task force to examine these issues.
Some 80-90 % of crimes are now drug related, but there exist no or few treatment programs simply because we are spending so much money on warehousing there is nothing left for treatment. Two thirds are back in jail within three years, so most there now are multiple repeat drug offenders. Our system is simply punishing the addict. Usually only a few volunteer programs exist. Although there is sometimes a Drug Court and funded Drug programs, but often far too few. Drug use makes our correctional system a revolving door. We do not cure addiction by punishing addicts.
You may or not know, but the federal billions per year spent on interdiction of drugs coming into this country is a waste. We have not reduced the amount coming into this country one percent in 30 years, because the appetite for drugs has multiplied.
I and a few others will be dialoguing with him and others, and considering a quiet effort to build a consensus for change. Moe Mercier and Becky from OWL also met for part of our lunch time at I-Ching in Hamburg Pavillion today. We shall be gathering data. My sense is that this problem is not simply Kentucky. A few other states are taking steps toward sentencing reform.
Since the "three strikes and you're out" approach began in California, that state has built 20 new prisons and not a single new university in the last 20 years. Plus there is no money for anything else in corrections, not even half-way houses. One of Reagan's first acts as govenor of California was to defund the half-way houses. That is the time when the national move in toward warehousing only in Corrections began, with fewer funds available for any rehabilitation programs. At that time, I was still consulting with the Federal Correctional Center on Leestown Road here in Lexington.
Consider checking this out in your own locality.
One problem in generating energy for this is the huge drop in community involvement in the current generation. From the high involvement of those now in their sixties and seventies, those in their 20s and 30s are simply not stepping up.
Bowling Alone, by Robert Putnam illustrates this by hundreds of studies. What he also discovered is something really fascinating: Those states with the highest volunteer community participation, like some in the Northeast and Northwest, also had the best ratings on every single measurable index of health in their communities, from premarital pregnancy, to juvenile crime, to rate of crime, etc. Those states in the south, with the lowest rates of volunteer community participation had the worst rates on those same measures. In other words,
the overall health of the community depends upon the care and nurture by the adults in the community for their community. Measurably so.
Does this suggest any activity for us who aspire to leadership in our communities?
For those who want to help make our communties a healthier place to live?
Discussion, anyone?
Wednesday, January 5
It is a human disaster that is affecting many and few seem to care. We need to examine sentencing reform, as a few other states are doing. Moreover, the counties are making money on these numbers: the state is paying them because the state correctional system cannot handle them. So there is no incentive to change. The larger numbers in the county jails, the more money the county earns for its other financial needs. Crowded jails are money-makers for local officials. Yes. Believe it or not.
Today I met with Dr. Robert Lawson, Law Professor at UK, who is completing a long study of the problem for a law journal, which paper has already received some pre-publicity interest via the Louisville Courier-Journal. Lawson was one of the authors of the original sentencing code completed in the early 70s and enacted in 1975. Society has greatly changed since then, and he
is gathering information on actual conditions and wants to start another task force to examine these issues.
Some 80-90 % of crimes are now drug related, but there exist no or few treatment programs simply because we are spending so much money on warehousing there is nothing left for treatment. Two thirds are back in jail within three years, so most there now are multiple repeat drug offenders. Our system is simply punishing the addict. Usually only a few volunteer programs exist. Although there is sometimes a Drug Court and funded Drug programs, but often far too few. Drug use makes our correctional system a revolving door. We do not cure addiction by punishing addicts.
You may or not know, but the federal billions per year spent on interdiction of drugs coming into this country is a waste. We have not reduced the amount coming into this country one percent in 30 years, because the appetite for drugs has multiplied.
I and a few others will be dialoguing with him and others, and considering a quiet effort to build a consensus for change. Moe Mercier and Becky from OWL also met for part of our lunch time at I-Ching in Hamburg Pavillion today. We shall be gathering data. My sense is that this problem is not simply Kentucky. A few other states are taking steps toward sentencing reform.
Since the "three strikes and you're out" approach began in California, that state has built 20 new prisons and not a single new university in the last 20 years. Plus there is no money for anything else in corrections, not even half-way houses. One of Reagan's first acts as govenor of California was to defund the half-way houses. That is the time when the national move in toward warehousing only in Corrections began, with fewer funds available for any rehabilitation programs. At that time, I was still consulting with the Federal Correctional Center on Leestown Road here in Lexington.
Consider checking this out in your own locality.
One problem in generating energy for this is the huge drop in community involvement in the current generation. From the high involvement of those now in their sixties and seventies, those in their 20s and 30s are simply not stepping up.
Bowling Alone, by Robert Putnam illustrates this by hundreds of studies. What he also discovered is something really fascinating: Those states with the highest volunteer community participation, like some in the Northeast and Northwest, also had the best ratings on every single measurable index of health in their communities, from premarital pregnancy, to juvenile crime, to rate of crime, etc. Those states in the south, with the lowest rates of volunteer community participation had the worst rates on those same measures. In other words,
the overall health of the community depends upon the care and nurture by the adults in the community for their community. Measurably so.
Does this suggest any activity for us who aspire to leadership in our communities?
For those who want to help make our communties a healthier place to live?
Discussion, anyone?
Wednesday, January 5
posted by Paschal Baute at 7:49 PM
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