And CA is going to release 40% of its inmates

[wharthog3]

The biggest problem with Marijuana and other drugs is that most of the users can not and will not hold a regular job. They still have their addiction though and have to find a way to satisfy that addiction. How do they do this?

Well they go out and steal from other people.

I work a ton of burglaries, more so than any other types of crime. The one thing that nearly everyone has in common is that they are out doing these burglaries so they have something to sell or trade for their drugs. Around here it is usually either for weed or crack. Who do they steal from? More times than not, and what has become common in my area is they find people who work, they are the ones that own nice things and they are the ones that are gone from their homes for 8 hours a day. They watch the homes and find out when the people are gone to work then go break in and clean them out, usually during the daytime hours.

What happens a lot of times is we will know who did a burglary but not be able to provide enough proof to get a conviction for the burglary. What we do end up getting is convictions for minor drug useage when we catch them in possession. So although they may get sent off for a couple years on a minor drug charge, we are in effect taking burglars and thieves off the streets. These who get prison time for minor drug offenses are not first time offenders as we never get more than probation of supervision for about the first 6 - 8 convictions. The ones we send up on minor drug charges are people who have proven time and time again they have no intention of changing their ways. The only life they know is to steal and thieve and get more drugs.

Call BS, dispute it, argue, do as you wish. You won't change my opinion on it because I'm the guy working the cases, doing the interviews, hearing the methods from those that decide to talk, and sending them off to prison. I see it daily. Yes there are a few exceptions but those are exceptions and are far from the norm.

You can legalize anything you want, fact of the matter is there will still be people addicted to it and they will still have to find a way to pay for it. When they don't work they will resort to committing other crimes to fund it.

I fully agree with what you're saying. Drug addiction won't change whether the drug is illegal or not. I can tell you right NOW if caffeine (a drug) were outlawed (based on some moral reason or whatever) I'd be brewing my own coffee.

Yes, this is a light-hearted argument but it points out that people are going to get their "drug of choice" whether the law says its okay or not.


I'd argue that drug addiction and the criminal justice system should be separated completely. We rely on cops and judges to solve problems that have been too long coming on people that are too far gone.

Imagine the resources that we spend fighting drugs, that if they were legal (i'm talking about decriminalization, not protection under the law) and instead spent our time and resources on REAL education we'd have far better results.

We expect our system to rehabilitate people that have never been "habilitated" in the first place.

DARE doesn't work, "Just say No" doesn't work

Our current system teaches kids that Meth is JUST as bad as weed, and with your day to day dealings, I'm sure you would disagree with this.

There is no EASY solution to this issue, no "silver bullet" but I can tell you what ISN'T working is the CURRENT way we do things.

 

[wharthog3]

not to bash but this is absolutely short sighted reasoning... repeat offenders make up about 90% of the prison population.. this group of less than law abiding inmates are going to be back.. now what? kick out others? just do not incarcerate? awww I am at a loss here...

My apologies. I'm at work so couldn't really elaborate on the point.

The point I was attempting to get across was that these "40%" aren't people that, without this change, would not have ever been let out of prison. We aren't letting out the "killers and rapists and kidnappers" and these are people that would have been released at some point. The cutting down of the prison population is to relieve the state's financial burden of housing this crowd.

Where they will go, and what they will do when they get out, and who's "problem" they are at that point probably hasn't been considered by the "law makers"

Its one big mess.

 

[skydivr]

When the are released, maybe we'd get lucky and they'd give them the address and map to Nancy Pelosi's house....