Category Archives: War On Drugs

U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions tough-on-crime approach has irked critics, who fear it may undo years of progress on sentencing, particularly for non-violent drug offenses.

Sessions last week issued a memo to federal prosecutors telling them to pursue the most serious, provable offenses in charging and sentencing. The memo essentially directs federal prosecutors to throw the book at criminal offenders when they can, which is a contrast to the previous administrations stance on criminal justice.

See: Expect greater enforcement of marijuana laws under trump, Spicer says

Under former Attorney General Eric Holder, federal prosecutors were advised against taking the most severe course of action for certain low-level, non-violent drug cases. The action was intended to avoid triggering unnecessary mandatory minimum sentences that disproportionately affect minorities. Now, marijuana legalization advocates, among other groups, are up in arms.

Sessions is taking the country back to the 1980s by escalating the failed policies of the drug war, said Michael Collins, deputy director of national affairs for the Drug Policy Alliance, in a statement.

About one in five, or 21% of the U.S. population, live in a state where using marijuana is legal, but the substance is still federally banned and labeled a Schedule I drug along with heroin and LSD.

Also read: Marijuana industry could be worth 5$50 billion annually by 2026

With 60% of Americans in support of legalizing marijuana and roughly 70%, according to a Quinnipiac poll, opposed to the federal government interfering in states where marijuana is legal, some in the industry predict that Sessions action will create major political backlash.

On Tuesday, the Drug Policy Alliance held a rally against Sessions war-on-drug-like policies outside of the Justice Department, that included members of advocacy group The Sentencing Project, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and the Open Society Policy Center, to name a few.

See also: How the marijuana industry is aiming to undo the harm caused by the war on drugs

Rand Paul, Republican U.S. Senator from Kentucky, on Monday penned an opinion piece for CNN, condemning Sessions policy change.

We should be treating our nations drug epidemic for what it is a public health crisis, not an excuse to send people to prison and turn a mistake into a tragedy, Senator Paul wrote. Mandatory sentencing automatically imposes a minimum number of years in prison for specific crimes usually drug related.

This isnt about legalizing drugs. It is about making the punishment more fitting and not ruining more lives.

Under Sessions directive, the change in how federal government will charge and sentence criminal offenders will be felt most by drug offenders, but it may also provide a clue as to how Sessions Justice Department plans to crack down on crime.

Holder, last week, called Sessions decision unwise and ill-informed.

Read also: Jeff Sessions is not wrong about addiction, but evidence says heroin is still more dangerous than marijuana

The policy announced today is not tough on crime. It is dumb on crime, he wrote in a statement. It is an ideologically motivated, cookie-cutter approach that has only been proven to generate unfairly long sentences that are often applied indiscriminately and do little to achieve long-term public safety.

Holders approach, while avoiding tough sentencing for certain drug offenses, did not change the policy for charging and sentencing for other federal crimes, and the most serious crimes were still treated with severe sentencing. But what Sessions is essentially saying is: We want to be tough on everything.

Sessions says the push to increase prosecutions is part of a plan to increase public safety. And there is an argument that this gives prosecutors more authority and more freedom to threaten criminal offenders with the most severe charge when bargaining plea deals.

The problem is federal criminal prosecutions have declined for the past five years, hitting the lowest level in nearly two decades, while at the same time the number of violent crimes in the U.S. has been on a downward trend for more than two decades, according to data from Pew Research.

And while conditions in federal prisons have improved in the past few years, they are still overcrowded.

The majority of people locked in federal prison arent even violent offenders, according to Marc Mauer, executive director of The Sentencing Project. And half of the people in federal prison are incarcerated on drug convictions.

Dont miss: War on drugs spokesman now supports marijuana legalization

This move will not only exacerbate overcrowding in prison populations, it will be costly and divert needed resources from prevention and treatment, Mauer said.

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Jeff Sessions' new policy is a 'dumb' and 'ill-informed' continuation of the war on drugs, critics say - MarketWatch

by John Pickerill

We see it in the news constantly: The drug abuse epidemic. Sometimes its heroin. Sometimes its meth. Sometimes its prescription-drug abuse, but the results seem to be the same. Those addicted tend to neglect their jobs, their families and themselves. Emergency rooms and emergency medical responders are seeing more and more of these people overdose.

Our societys response is to treat it like a criminal problem instead of a medical problem, and weve been doing it that way for 46 years. We declared the War on Drugs in 1971, aggressively sent the police after users and dealers to get them off the streets. We tried to teach drug users and drug dealers a lesson by making the punishment so awful it would deter others. We made judges hand out mandatory minimum prison sentences for drug-related convictions. We allowed police to conduct civil-asset forfeiture.

Despite these aggressive policies and enforcement actions, illicit drug trade is worse than ever. In 2008, only 81 tons of the 450 tons of heroin trafficked was seized. That same year 865 tons of cocaine was trafficked worldwide, 165 tons of which was consumed in the United States (more than any other nation). In 2009, drug use was responsible for more than 37,000 deaths in the U.S., a number that exceeded traffic accident deaths that year. Over the past decade, drug-related deaths have doubled even though all other causes of death declined. The War on Drugs has failed its primary objective despite receiving over $1 trillion in funding since 1971.

What it has succeeded in doing is filling up our prisons and jails to bursting. In 1974, there were 218,466 inmates in all federal prisons, state prisons and local jails. By 2014, it exploded to 1,508,636 (a 600 percent increase). According to a study by Jonathan Rothwell, a senior economist at Gallup, more people are now admitted to prisons for drug crimes each year than for violent crimes or for property crimes. The cost on the taxpayer to house and care for these inmates is now $12.6 billion a year.

Treating drug abuse as a criminal problem instead of a medical problem is making it worse not better. Our goal should be recovery so that the previously addicted person can overcome addiction, get his life back on track. However, once we as a society label that person a felon, we make it infinitely harder for him to do that. When he tries to get a job, he is forced to check the box labeled Have you ever been convicted of a felony? If he is trying to better his life by going to college, he is ineligible to receive financial aid to pay for college. We are putting obstacles in the way of achieving our goal.

What are we hoping to accomplish by continuing War-on-Drugs policy? Again, the last 46 years have proven that even if we pass a plethora of get-tough-on-drugs laws, spend a trillion dollars and put 600 percent more people behind bars, it will not decrease the number of people getting drugs and getting addicted to drugs.

The first step to reversing all of this is focusing our resources on addiction treatment, recovery and prevention and to try to actually solve the problem.

John Pickerill, past chairman of the Montgomery County Republican Party, wrote this for the Indiana Policy Review Foundation. A graduate of Purdue University and the Navy Nuclear Propulsion Program, Pickerill retired from the U.S. Navy with the rank of Commander.

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Where is the war on drugs headed? - KPCnews.com

GALLATIN , Tn. (WBKO) -- A unique officer training program combining work and play to fight a growing problem.

Introducing the master in the K-9 training world down in Hendersonville, Tennessee is Dean Hunter; Owner of Canine Command.

With the rise in drug trafficking and use in south central Kentucky and the surrounding area, canine trainer Dean has seen an increasing demand for K-9s.

"There's a huge rise in drugs in this area, and I think a dog, especially a narcotic dog, is a great asset for the department. Several departments this year has come on board and trained narcotic or asked me to train narcotic dogs for them. I'm going to say probably four to five departments I work with this year that hadn't worked with in the past."

While officers may be equipped with handguns and cuffs, a four-legged officer packing a tool we humans can't obtain.

"Canines have such a strong sense of smell, it's unbelievable. We don't know how strong a sense of smell a canine has, but we do know that our canine has 10000 co-factors more than a human being. They can also break down our odors where we just smell one specific odor. As you imprint them on the odors, you teach them how to go in to a final response letting you know that this is where the source is," Dean Hunter added.

Once the K-9 arrives to the scene to look for the possible narcotic, they don't realize what they're looking for is an illegal substance. Dean Hunter says all they're looking forward to is their reward after they find the drug.

"You know, over 30 years of fooling with dogs, or training with dogs, they still amaze me sometimes on how strong their sense of smell is and what they can detect," Hunter stated.

But what makes a k-9 truly special, is the relationship with the handler.

Back in 2013, officer Adam Tate was partnered with a dual-purpose K-9 named Yaro by Dean Hunter and have been working together ever since.

"Most of our dogs that Mr. Hunter selects for different departments are actually suited for the handler, and suits the dog's personality to the handler. His personality is a lot like mine, that's why we get along so well. We're so much alike in so many ways. The first day I got him, I was trying to take pictures of him and sent some pictures out and he ate my cell phone, so that was our first encounter," Officer Tate stated.

While being out in the field on a regular basis, officer Tate and Yaro understand why K-9's are an asset to the force.

"Drug issues is widespread all across the U.S. but especially here in middle Tennessee and southern Kentucky. It's growing every day and it's growing at an alarming rate. Not every department can afford to have a K-9. So a lot of times they'll call for mutual aid assistance for drug searches and things like that with a K-9," Officer Tate added.

But those who work with K-9's don't see them as a dog. They see them as a partner.

"Dogs are a joy to work with. I mean, they know they're a man's best friend," Dean Hunter concluded.

"I wouldn't trade it for the world. Best partner I could ever ask for. He's always got my back and I've always got his," Officer Tate explained.

A dynamic duo fighting crime four paws at a time.

According to Dean Hunter, training a K-9 can take up to 10 to 24 weeks with continuous refreshers between a handler and dog.

As far as the price for a trained K-9 goes, you're looking around nine to sixteen thousand dollars, depending on the training.

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SPECIAL REPORT: K9 TRAINING: Fighting the war on drugs - WBKO

Nine months after British journalist Johann Hari toured Australia, urging politicians drop the "war on drugs" and adopt reforms of "love and compassion", we have a new policy: drug test people on Centrelink.

The idea announced in last week's federal budget will see 5,000 new welfare recipients undergo random drug testing from 1 January 2018.

It will apply to people on Newstart or Youth Allowance (meaning students and the unemployed), and anyone who fails will have their payments quarantined.

The idea is new for Australia, but already happening in the US and New Zealand. It has been criticised by a lot of drug experts for putting more pressure and stress on people who are already vulnerable.

But to understand the thinking behind this policy, and how it's part of a broader 100-year-old history of the "war on drugs", we we have to take a deep dive into the nature of addiction and theories around the best way of getting people to stop.

Our guide is Johann Hari, author of Chasing the Scream, an account of his three-year, 50,000-kilometre investigation into which drug policies work, and which don't.

Johann went everywhere from Portugal to Arizona. He had written lots about drugs already, had known friends and family who became drug addicts, and been addicted himself to prescription drugs. He didn't expect too many surprises.

That changed with the Rat Park.

"What surprised me is that I had misunderstood what addiction is at a basic level," he told Hack last year.

"We have the idea that if we inflict more pain on addicts, we can make them stop.

"But once you understand that pain has caused the addiction, you understand that punishing addicts makes them worse."

The Rat Park is a 1970s Canadian experiment. It was a variation on earlier experiments in which caged rats were given two water bottles - one of them laced with heroin or cocaine. "The rat will almost always prefer the drugged water and overdose and die within a couple of weeks."

Pretty grim. These experiments seemed to prove the theory that addiction was almost entirely due to 'chemical hooks' in drugs. Addiction was all about physical need.

Once the hooks are in your body you're as helpless as a coked-up rat in a cage.

Except that doesn't quite add up. Hospital patients are routinely given high-dose medical heroin for pain relief and very few go on to develop addiction. Why are people shooting up outside the hospital vulnerable to addiction? It can't all be chemical hooks.

In the Rat Park experiment, instead of being left in cages where they had nothing in their lives except the drug, the rats were let loose in a "rat heaven". Here they had loads of friends, cheese and sex. The result: they showed little interest in the spiked water.

It doesn't get better than the Rat Park.

None of the heavenly rats became addicted.

This led Johann to conclude:

"The opposition of addiction is not sobriety, the opposite of addiction is connection."

Johann saw these two different theories of addiction reflected in the different approaches to drug policy: compassionate or brutal. An example of the brutal kind is Arizona's, where women are made to go out as a chain gang wearing t-shirts saying "I was a drug addict" and "I am breaking the need for weed" while they pick up trash and members of the public mock them.

Prisoners at Tent City jail in Arizona.

Prisoners at Tent City in Arizona.

Humiliation only deepens people's propensity for addiction, Johann said. It's the human equivalent of putting a rat in a lonely cage.

He sees the surging rates of different kinds of addictions as a symptom of a much deeper, fundamental problem of lack of personal connection. In the US, overdose deaths involving prescription painkillers (such as Oxycodone) have tripled over the past 15 years, and rates of heroin deaths have spiked in the last five years.

In Australia, there's been a spike in addiction to codeine, an opiate present in over-the-counter drugs.

"If we want to understand why people are turning to very powerful painkillers, we have to talk about why they're in so much pain," Johann said.

Where addiction is highest are the places where despair is deepest."

Sixteen years ago, the Rat Park came to Portugal. The country had been pursuing a "tough on drugs" policy, but still had one of the worst drug problems in Europe. A re-think was called for, and a special panel looked at the science, including the Rat Park experiment. They came back with a recommendation to decriminalise all drugs."The whole lot," Johann said.

The money that had been spent on arresting and punishing drug users was re-invested in job creation programs and residential rehabilitation. "The goal was to say to every addict in Portugal, we love you we value you we're on your side." In a bit over 10 years, injecting drug use was down 50 per cent, and there were massive reductions in street crime, addiction, overdose deaths and HIV.

"Approaches based on shame and stigma and punishment fail catastrophically.

"Policies that focus on love and compassion are not the magic bullet but they significantly reduce the problem."

Last week's idea of drug testing people on Centrelink suggests we're a long way from moving to less punitive drug policies. Politicians continue to talk about the 'war on drugs'.

But there have been a few surprises; late last year Greens leader Richard Di Natale called for bipartisan support to replicate Portugal's drug policy in Australia. The surprising part was that a Liberal MP backed the move. Sharman Stone, co-convenor with Di Natale of a Senate group on drug law reform, said it would put drug gangs out of business.

"Australians have some of the most sophisticated understanding of the drug debate and the addiction debate," Johann said.

"The gap between ordinary Australians and their government is so frustrating because Australians are so good on this."

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Could finding human connection end the 100yo war on drugs? - ABC Online

MISGUIDED JUSTICE MEMO MOVES AMERICA BACKWARDS

From its inception thiswebsite has been an unwavering opponent of the federal governments failed War on Drugs.

First, its wrong.

Second, it doesnt work.

Third, its hamstringing our economy.

Government efforts to outlaw certain types of recreational drugs have drained taxpayers of more than $1.3 trillion since the administration of Richard Nixon instituted this New Prohibition in the early 1970s. Yet this massive infusion of resources hasfailed to curb either supply or demand.

Nonetheless, another $50-60 billion in public money will be spent this year despite the demonstrable failure of such appropriations to produce the results policymakers have promised.

Vast expenditures on criminalization and repressive measures directed at producers, traffickers and consumers of illegal drugs have clearly failed to effectively curtail supply or consumption, a 2011 report from the Global Commission on Drug Policy noted.

Meanwhile, the War on Drugs has created a new class of violent criminals on the one handwhilecriminalizing behavior that ought to be perfectly legal on the other. Its also snuffed out a potentially lucrative new marketplace at a time when our countrys economy could desperately use additionaljobs and income.

Its time frankly past time our nation adoptedsome common sense in its approach to this issue. In our view, U.S. drug policy should beguided by the following four core principles

1 FREEDOM Americans should have the right to consumewhatever recreational drugs they wish within the privacy of their own homes or businesses or the homes and businesses ofother consenting adults. As long as their enjoyment of this liberty doesnt impose upon the liberties of others (i.e. injurious negligence, child neglect, driving while impaired, etc.), then it should be none of the governments business what substances they consumebehind closed doors.

2. FREE MARKETS Americans should have the right to produce and sellwhatever recreational drugsthey wish within their own homes or under the auspices of a business enterprise. Again, as long as this engagement of the marketplace doesnt impose upon the liberties of others it should be none of the governments business.

3. SMALLGOVERNMENTIn the interest of public health and safety, government should have the right to regulate and tax the recreational drug industry in a fair, consistent and transparent manner using whatever proceeds it derives from the industry toward the funding of core government functions.

4. LOCAL CONTROL Local governments i.e. municipalities and counties should retain the right to limit or even outlaw the public consumption of recreational drugs within their communities. While we dont believe local leaders should be allowed to dictate what citizens grow or consume on private property, it should be up to local leaders to determine the extent to which recreational drug use is permitted in public in their communities.

Unfortunately, these common sense principles are not guiding the decisions of our policymakers. Just this week, U.S. attorney general Jeff Sessions appeared to take a major step in the opposite direction sending a memo to all U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) prosecutorsinstructing them tocharge and pursue the most serious, readily provable offense those that carry the most substantial guidelines sentence, including mandatory minimum sentences.

Here is Sessions memo

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Sessions claimed this policy shift was not directed toward low-level drug users but rather violent drug traffickers.

Our argument to that? Why preserve a system that keeps violent drug traffickers in business in the first place?

Last month, the Cato Institute in Washington, D.C. released a new report entitled Four Decades and Counting: The Continued Failure of the War on Drugs. Written by analysts Christopher J. Coyne and Abigail R. Hall, this report meticulously documents the extent to which Americas current approach has been disastrous on all fronts and how changes at the state level as well as critical shifts in U.S. federal policies, both domestically and internationally are needed.

Wait internationally?

Yup American taxpayers are subsidizing anti-drug efforts all over the world, efforts that are failing every bit as spectacularly as governments domestic jihad.

The U.S. War on Drugs, like the ill-fated war on alcohol of the early 20th century, is a prime example of disastrous policy, naked self-interest, and repeated ignorance on the part of elected officials and other policymakers, Coyne and Hall concluded. From its inception, the drug war has repeatedly led to waste, fraud, corruption, violence, and death. With many states moving toward legalization or decriminalization of some substances, and other nations moving to legalize drugs altogether, rethinking Americas drug policy is long overdue.

Indeed it is

Supporters of recreational drug use were hopeful that U.S. president Donald Trump would move our country away from the failed policies of the past and to Trumps credit his administration has embraced medical marijuanaas a legitimate treatment option for millions of Americans suffering from a variety of ailments.

Thats a good first step. The legalization of medical cannabis (as we have repeatedly stated) policy debate it is amoral imperative. We have consistently supported it, and we hope lawmakers in our home state of South Carolina will continueadvancing compassionate legislationaimed at legalizing it in the Palmetto State.

Unfortunately, Trumps White House spokesman Sean Spicer has spoken with stunning ignorance about the origins of Americans ongoing opioid epidemic while Sessions DOJ memo strikes us as yet another example of the extent to which some law and order conservatives continue to tragicallymisread this situation.

Cracking down on drug dealers isnt the answer. The answer is upending their apple cart by ending four decades of failed prohibition and providing for a regulated recreational drug marketplace.

Banner via iStock

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War On Drugs, Rebooted - FITSNews

Ordering federal prosecutors on Friday to crack down on drug offenders, Atty. Gen. Jeff Sessions made clear he wants the Justice Department to turn the clock back to an earlier, tougher era in the four-decades-long war on drugs.

In a memo, Sessions said federal prosecutors should charge and pursue the most serious, readily provable offense in drug cases, even when that would trigger mandatory minimum sentencing.

Mandatory sentencing laws for drug users have been controversial for years, and many Republicans as well as Democrats now oppose them as unfair, ineffective and too costly.

The new Justice Department policy cancels the Obama administrations attempts to pull back on harsh sentencing strategies, which had produced a huge growth in prison populations. It restores some language from a 2003 memo written by then-Atty. Gen. John Ashcroft.

Speaking Friday at the Justice Department, Sessions said the crackdown was a key part of President Trumps promise to keep America safe, linking drug trafficking to increased homicide rates in some cities.

We are returning to the enforcement of the law as passed by Congress plain and simple, Sessions said.

Sessions rescinded policy memos signed in 2013 and 2014 by then-Atty. Gen. Eric H. Holder Jr. that instructed prosecutors to reserve the toughest charges for high-level traffickers and violent criminals.

Since then, the number of drug offenders given mandatory minimum sentences has dropped dramatically, contributing to a 14% decline in the total federal prison population, with 188,797 inmates this month.

Holder slammed Sessions policy Friday, calling it ideologically motivated and not supported by facts.The policy announced today is not tough on crime, Holder said. It is dumb on crime.

The new policy threatens to halt a push for bipartisan criminal justice reform that has been led by some of Trumps closest advisors and embraced by key Republicans on Capitol Hill, including House Speaker Paul D. Ryan.

Sen. Rand Paul, (R-Ky.) criticized the new policy Friday, arguing that mandatory minimum sentences disproportionately targeted minorities because of how different drugs are categorized under the law.

The new policy will accentuate that injustice, Paul said in a statement.

Sessions is an outlier in his own party and even among many of his own colleagues in the administration, said Inimai Chettiar, a director at the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU School of Law in New York. A lot of Republicans support reductions in sentencing.

Indiana, for example, implemented a comprehensive criminal justice reform package when Vice President Mike Pence was governor.

I would say that we need to adopt criminal justice reform nationally. We have got to do a better job recognizing and correcting the errors in the system that do reflect institutional bias in criminal justice, Pence said in a campaign debate last year.

As governor of Texas, Energy Secretary Rick Perry guided his state through a major shift in sentencing away from the kind of harsh penalties that Sessions seeks to restore in federal courts.

In those states and others, alarm at the escalating cost of incarceration helped drive calls for reform.

But Sessions, a former federal prosecutor in Alabama, was never on board with the push.As a U.S. senator from Alabama, he helped kill a proposed sentencing reform bill, warning the legislation could lead to more felons on the streets. He also helped block a 2016 bill that would have eased federal sentencing for marijuana use.

Since joining the Trump administration, Sessions has reversed an Obama administration attempt to phase out federal contracts with private prisons, saying the cells will be needed for the boost in inmate population he sees coming.

Under mandatory sentencing laws, judges have little discretion on how to sentence drug offenders. Prosecutors decisions on charging often determine how long offenders will spend in prison.

For example, if federal prosecutors include the amount of drugs in their written charges, that can trigger a mandatory minimum sentence.

They also can file motions for so-called sentence enhancements, which can effectively double drug sentences for repeat offenders, or put them in jail for life.

Some prosecutors use these tough tools as a hammer in plea negotiations, or to force offenders to cooperate.

In his memo, Sessions said prosecutors must disclose all facts relevant to a sentence, like drug amounts. He also canceled a Holder policy that said prosecutors should not use sentencing enhancement motions to coerce guilty pleas.

Drug trafficking is an inherently violent business, Sessions said. If you want to collect a drug debt, you cant file a lawsuit in court. You collect it by the barrel of a gun.

He said heroin is cheaper, purer and more easily available than ever. Advocates of sentencing reform say that the opioid crisis is evidence that tough policies of the past have failed.

But Sessions said that tougher enforcement could reverse that trend.

One former federal judge from Tennessee said he was forced to sentence a low-level drug dealer to life in prison. The defendant refused to take a plea deal for 20 years in prison and was convicted at trial.

Under no circumstances was this sentence justice, said the former judge, Kevin Sharp, who has become an advocate for sentencing reform. We ruined his life.

In drug cases, Sharp said, the judges role in sentencing is dramatically reduced. I have yet to talk to a judge who says mandatory minimums are a good idea, he said.

joseph.tanfani@latimes.com

Twitter: @jtanfani

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Sessions restores tough drug war policies that trigger ...

Bystanders look on at a crime scene where an alleged drug personality was shot dead by unidentified men in Pasig city, east of Manila, Philippines, 13 May 2017. (EPA photo)

FOCUS: The Philippine government's war on drugs, implemented starting nearly a year ago upon the assumption into power of President Rodrigo Duterte, has not only resulted in the deaths of thousands of defiant suspected drug personalities, but also left jails swelling with more inmates and more legal cases piling up, authorities recently said.

At a recent forum about the condition of Philippine jails and prisons, Paulino Moreno Jr. of the Bureau of Jail Management and Penology said more than 142,000 individuals, as of last month, are detained across the country as almost all of them undergo trial for the various cases they are facing. Around 64% of these detainees are charged with violating the illegal drugs law.

The country's 466 jails have an ideal combined capacity of only around 20,400 individuals, and are only manned by no more than 12,000 personnel.

"Our statistics show that that's really the trend -- that most of the cases coming in are because of the law enforcement focus on illegal drugs (under the current) administration," Mr Moreno said as he acknowledged the "war on drugs" as "the major contributor to the congestion."

A previous population data report of Mr Moreno's agency covering until the end of January this year placed the number of detainees at nearly 132,000.

According to the government, more than 57,500 antidrug operations were conducted by authorities from July 1 last year up to May 9 this year, resulting in the arrests of 72,812 individuals and the deaths of 2,949 others who reportedly fought it out with law enforcers.

A separate report of the Philippine National Police noted that of the nearly 9,500 homicide incidents from July 1 last year up to March 31 this year, about one-fifth have been determined to be related to illegal drugs, while more than half are still under investigation. Around 20% of the cases, meanwhile, were found to be not related to illegal drugs.

Mr Duterte, who was sworn into office on June 30 last year, had vowed to be harsh against illegal drugs, criminality and corruption, believing that peace and order will spur economic development across the country. He cites his two-decade leadership in Davao City on Mindanao island that used such a model as his concrete example.

Mr Duterte repeatedly said his administration's war on drugs will not stop until the last drug pusher is removed from the streets and last drug lord is killed. He said law enforcers are mandated to neutralize suspects who fight back and endanger the lives of the former.

The campaign had facilitated also the surrender of nearly 1.27 million drug personalities, of whom, almost 90,000 are peddlers. Authorities estimate there are 4 million Filipinos who are hooked to illegal drugs as users and peddlers.

Percida Acosta, chief of the Public Attorney's Office which provides free legal service to indigent individuals facing charges, disclosed that before Mr Duterte came into power on June 30 last year, her office was handling some 82,000 drug-related cases. But six months later, it "got bloated" to around 303,000 cases.

These drug-related cases, Ms Acosta said, account for more than 50% of all the cases her office is handling. Private law firms, meanwhile, handle much fewer drug-related cases, although these involve bigger personalities like drug lords and traffickers, she said.

"Not all (accused in these drug-related cases) were brought to jail because there is no more place for them there. Some were asked to return to their homes, or were referred to religious groups, non-government organizations and their communities for self-rehabilitation," Ms Acosta said.

With only 1,655 public lawyers across the country who also handle other cases like murder and rape, Ms Acosta said measures are being taken to reduce the case load of her office, including an appeal to the court to allow "small-time" violators of the illegal drugs law to plea bargain for the early disposition of their cases. "These smalltime drug users are just victims of drug traffickers," Ms Acosta said.

Meanwhile, Martin Perfecto, deputy director for reformation at the Bureau of Corrections, said the problem of congestion has existed for a long time, disclosing that the current population of all seven prison facilities across the country stands at over 41,000. The ideal capacity is only for a little over 19,200.

Mr Perfecto said about 30% of the current population consists of convicted drug offenders.

It is not clear, however, if the current campaign against illegal drugs made the congestion problem in prisons worse, especially since the country's Dangerous Drugs Board noted that the conviction rate for illegal drugs cases is very low.

Mr Perfecto hopes the current administration will start implementing the modernization program of the Bureau of Corrections, which is covered by a law passed in 2013, to be able to address the issues of congestion and its personnel, among others.

Just like the Bureau of Corrections, Mr Moreno said the Bureau of Jail Management also needs more facilities to reduce its congestion rate and eventually comply with international standards.

Rodolfo Diamante of the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines lamented that despite the existence of the problem of jail congestion for a long time and the constant advocacy of several sectors to address it, it has remained a low priority for various governments.

"The reform of the jail and prison system is not really given attention to. There is no comprehensive reform program. The problem about jail conditions is not about lack of funds. It's the lack of priority, and the lack of implementation of the law," said Mr Diamante.

Jacqueline Ann de Guia of the Commission on Human Rights said the Philippines has "one of the most complex penitentiary systems in the world, considering the number of institutions that take care of our penitentiary system -- the Philippine National Police, the BJMP, local government units, the Bureau of Corrections."

"That explains the differences in policies, approaches, budgetary allocations," Ms de Guia said.

Mr Diamante said a proposal to integrate all jails and prison systems under one government unit is supported by his organization, as well as "alternatives to imprisonment," which also include the granting of executive clemency to longtime and aging prisoners.

"This congestion problem is really big, and is not just of the BJMP and the agencies involved in custodial function. This is a societal problem, and it needs a whole-of-government approach, and including the private sector also, of course," Mr Moreno said.

In light of the worsening congestion in jails amid the current administration's war on drugs, Ms de Guia reiterated to the Commission on Human Rights the fact that the government should have foreseen "many will be arrested."

"So, we should first fix the conditions of our jails. Let's allot budget for the construction of new facilities, like what the BJMP has said, so we won't have problems with congestion. We hope there is also an approach towards rehabilitation," Ms de Guia said.

At a separate forum, Benjamin Reyes of the Dangerous Drugs Board stressed the campaign against illegal drugs is not limited only to law enforcement, but also includes prevention and rehabilitation.

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Philippines' war on drugs: detentions, legal cases surge - Bangkok Post

How can we stop Attorney General Jeff Sessions from instigating another round of the War on Drugs, which has unwaveringly focused on black and Latino neighborhoods, filling for-profit prisons and disrupting and disenfranchising the communities of people of color?

A Justice Department spokesman said Sessions intent is to keep Americans safe, but there is no evidence that the Obama administrations less aggressive approach toward prosecuting drug cases led to a rise in crime. Sessions record in the area of civil rights is dubious at best, which leads me to suspect that his department will display no more even-handedness than those of previous Republican administrations. Perhaps we can get our legislators to deny funding for this latest law-and-order blitz.

Patricia Bryan

Eugene

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Don't start another War on Drugs - The Register-Guard

Punishing low-level drug offenders is back in style. Thanks a lot, Jeff Sessions.

Attorney General Jeff Sessions. (AP Photo / Frank Franklin II)

On Friday, Attorney General Jeff Sessions pulled the plug on policy changes implemented by the Department of Justice under President Obama that had begun to change Americasdecades-long practice of keepinglow-level criminals, like nonviolent drug offenders, languishing in prison. Sessions has directed prosecutorsto return to strict sentencing and mandatory minimums, which could increase prison populations, andin the midst of a national opioid epidemicrevive the unproven belief that punitive measures, instead of treatment, will solve drug addiction. And todays memowill again have the criminal-justice system targeting poor black and Latino communities already devastated by the war on drugs.1

In his memo rolling back the Justice Departmentsefforts to shrink the number of people in prison, Sessions wrote, It is a core principle that prosecutors should charge and pursue the most serious readily provable offense. That means tellingprosecutors and judges everywhere to return to extreme measures like seeking 10 years minimum for street-level drug sales. The policy, he wrote is moral, and just, and produces consistency. But thats exactly the problem: It is not moral or just, or effective. Mandatory minimums, charging as much as you can, those tough sentences dont work, said Michael Collins, deputy director at the Drug Policy Alliance, an organization dedicated to promoting science-based drug policy. They just exacerbate the problem, and it doesnt stop drug use.2

Research from the last 20 years shows that imposing mandatory minimums, particularly on nonviolent drug offenders, hasnt had positive results: according to a report from the Vera Institute of Justice, incarceration has not been effective when it comes to reducing crime, and longer sentences havent reduced recidivism. [Sessions] has no evidence to show that being harsher is effective or necessary or what prosecutors or judges want, said Roy Austin, who served as deputy assistant to the president for the Office of Urban Affairs, Justice, and Opportunity at the White Houseunder Obama. Our prisons dont rehabilitate, or they do a very bad job at rehabilitating. Why are you locking someone up for 10 years with substandard programming thinking theyre going to be a better person?3

After Eric Holder issued the memo revising sentencing guidelines and curbing the use of mandatory minimums in 2013, the federal prison population decreased,butfederal prisons account for a only small fraction of the total prison population. States, meanwhile, have also been moving away from mandatory minimums; since2000, at least 29 states have done so,though there has not been enough research to determine what impact suchchanges have been on incarceration numbers nationwide.4

Austin says that changes resulting from Holders 2013 memo produced no negative impact. So why go back?5

In March, Jeff Sessions said in a speech to law-enforcement officials, Our nation needs to say clearly once again that using drugs is bad. He added, It will destroy your life. He, like many otherpoliticians and public officials, believe that draconian drug policies will reduce crime and rehabilitate drug users. In reality, such policies have exploded prison populations, and they have targeted black and Latino communities.The Drug Policy Alliance found that nonviolent drug law offenders made up 50,000 of the prison population in 1980 to over 400,000 by 1997. Today there are more than 430,000 people sitting in state and federal prisons for all drug offenses.6

Harsh sentencing for drug offenses started with President Richard Nixon. Nixon objected to drugs on moral grounds, calling drug abuse public enemy No. 1 anddeclaring a war on drugs in 1971. It was a move that carried with it the convenient idea that drug users were criminal and that drug use was to blame for rampant urban crime. This idea appealed to the silent majority,white voters who latched onto the idea that drug addiction should be dealt with as a crime, rather than a public-health issue. A massive increase in public spending on incarceration and law enforcement followed.7

In 1986, President Ronald Reagan signed the Anti-Drug Abuse Act, which devoted $1.7 billion to the war on drugs and created mandatory minimum sentences for drug offenses. Individuals convicted for crack possession weregiven longer sentences than those who were convicted for cocaine use, a policythat disproportionately impacted poorer communities of color. In his bookHigh Price, Columbia University professor Carl Hart argues that crack use followed, rather than precipitated, unemployment in the black community. High unemployment rates were indeed correlated with increases in crack cocaine use, he wrote, but whats not well known is that they preceded cocaine use, rather than followed it. In other words, crack wasnt the reason black people in America were losing their jobs, their jobs were already disappearing. Hart later wrote, Unfortunately, many peopleboth blacks and whitesfell for the idea that crack cocaine was the key cause of our problems and that more prisons and longer sentences would help solve them. In fact, Hart writes, while crack has been seen as a largely black problem, whites are actually more likely to use the drug, according to national statistics. 8

THE STAKES ARE HIGHER NOW THAN EVER. GET THE NATION IN YOUR INBOX.

So, the war on drugs gave us a larger prison prison population, made a moral argument for locking up low-level drug offenders, and specifically targeted black and brown people. And instead of continuing on with the approach that Obamas Justice Department put forth, one that sought to reduce prison populations and move away from racial targeting, Sessions is bringing it back.9

There is also an economic argument to be made against Sessionss recommendations. Returning to mandatory minimums, Austin says, means pouring more money into the Bureau of Prisons, a subdivision of the Department of Justice, to deal with overcrowded prisons. It means more private prisons. And, as more public funds are spent on incarceration, cuts to programs aimed at reducing recidivism are likely to follow.Says Jeff Robinson, director of the Trone Center for Justice Equality at the ACLU, Its the most transparently illogical and unintelligent approach to criminal justice.10

Editors Note: This piece initiallyreferred incorrectly to Roy Austins position. He was the deputy assistant to the president for the Office of Urban Affairs, Justice, and Opportunity at the White House, not at the Justice Department.

Originally posted here:

Welcome to the 'War On Drugs,' Redux - The Nation.

James Forman Jr. wanted to tell a story that put African-Americans at the center, and not just on the sidelines. He found that story in a Washington, D.C. courtroom where all the actors the judge, his client, and the prosecutor all looked like him.

It was the 1990s, and Forman was a public defender trying to keep a young man named Brandon, whod been caught with a gun and a small amount of marijuana, out of the then notoriously inhumane (and now defunct) Oak Hill Youth Correctional Facility.

Forman, who is now a Yale Law School professor and author of the celebrated new book Locking Up Our Own: Crime and Punishment in Black America, told WNHH radio host Kica Matos during the latest episode of Kicas Corner that he saw his work in the public defenders office as the civil rights challenge of my generation.

That makes sense if you know the environment in which Forman was raised. He is a movement baby whose parents met through their work for the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, or SNCC, as it was most commonly known. His father, James Forman Sr., served as SNCCs executive secretary.

By the late 1990s, the U.S. had surpassed Russia as the worlds largest jailer. Forman saw the disparities of who that impacted the most in courtrooms just like the one he was in that day with Brandon. He saw keeping Brandon, a poor kid growing up in a tough D.C. neighborhood, out of jail, particularly one that had no functioning school and no viable social services, as civil rights work.

The judge, whod lived through Jim Crow and segregation, saw things differently. He told Brandon that day that Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. had died for his freedom, not so that Brandon could be carrying an illegal gun. Actions have consequences, the judge said, and he sent Brandon off to Oak Hill.

The judge had used the same civil rights history that I had used for becoming a public defender, but he had flipped it, Forman said. He was using it as a form of argument for why [Brandon] had to be locked up. The judge wasnt alone.

Formans new book is about how a generation of people who had fought for freedom during the civil rights movement and become the first generation of black elected officials in largely black cities like Washington, D.C. found themselves contributing to the mass incarceration of their own people. He said he wanted to tell the story of how that happened, and hopefully offer some ideas on how to keep it from happening again.

When people think of a drugs impact on the black community, Forman said, they often think about the crack epidemic of the 1980s and early 1990s. But in the late 1960s, it was heroin that was having devastating impacts on cities with high concentrations of black people. Crime was through the roof. The murder rate had tripled in the District of Columbia and doubled in other places. Black constituents wanted their black elected officials to do something.

As part of his research for the book, Forman spent summers reading the constituent letters in the archived records of former D.C. City Council members and he said, what leaps off the pages is the pain and anguish that people were feeling. They wrote comments like, I feel like a prisoner in my own home, Forman said. I feel like a stranger on my own street.

I cant walk to the store. I cant take my kid to school without passing drug dealers. Theyre shooting up the place. What happened to us as a community? What happened to us as a people?

This first generation of black elected officials who had come into power after the fall of formal Jim Crow wanted to be responsive to black death and victimization in a way that government had not been for centuries prior to this moment in history.

Prior to this time, Forman said, black folks didnt call the police if they were robbed or assaulted in their own neighborhood because they knew from experience that the then mostly white police forces wouldnt respond, and if they did respond, they would make the situation much worse.

It wasnt a murder if it was a dead black person, he said of the police then, which was overwhelmingly white even in a predominately black city like Washington, D.C. It was just another dead black person.

He said the black officials who had come to power wanted to prove that they would do things differently. They wanted to protect black lives, he said.

They also wanted to address the root causes of crime and addiction with better jobs, housing, schools, and drug and mental health treatment, Forman said. What they got was law enforcement.

They wanted a Marshall Plan for urban America, he said. They wanted a massive investment in an infusion of jobs in our community for a lot of reasons, including fighting crime. Although this is a story of black characters front and central, any story thats about what people of color do in this country also has to be about the constraints and the racism and the things that surround them and limit their abilities. They wanted an all of the above strategy to fighting crime. But they only got one of the above.

Forman said thats because African-Americans have never controlled the U.S. Congress or statehouses.

We controlled cities, he said. So we could deploy more police. We could deploy more prosecutors. But we by ourselves did not have enough political power to create a Marshall Plan for urban America. People of color have always needed allies. Theyve always needed the white community to feel their pain, and that was never forthcoming.

Though the book examines what role African-Americans played in mass incarceration, including the dynamics of class and colorism, and the series of policy steps and possible missteps that contributed to the system, Forman said one cant view these factors as separate from racism.

Race is central, he said. White supremacy is central. You cant understand the history of this country, the history of the criminal justice system, the history of mass incarceration without understanding the role of racism. At the same time, its not the whole story.

Click on or download the above audio file to hear the full interview with James Forman Jr. on WNHH radios Kicas Corner.

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Prof Mines The Roots Of The War On Drugs - New Haven Independent