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Audit - Review $1 billion expansion of prison system (The Oregonian
says auditors for the state of Oregon are urging a thorough review
of the state's $1 billion prison expansion plan because of concerns
that it could bring a surplus of prison beds at construction costs
that are nearly 70 percent higher than in other states.)
The Oregonian
letters to editor:
letters@news.oregonian.com
1320 SW Broadway
Portland, OR 97201
Fax: 503-294-4193
Web: http://www.oregonlive.com/
Audit: Review $1 billion expansion of prison system
* A state report says Oregon might be adding more prison beds than it will
need while paying almost 70 percent more than other states
Friday, December 4 1998
By Nena Baker
of The Oregonian staff
State auditors are urging a thorough review of Oregon's $1 billion prison
expansion plan because of concerns that it could bring a surplus of prison
beds at construction costs that are nearly 70 percent higher than other states.
A new Audits Division report released Thursday said the state could save $64
million by cutting back on unneeded beds and by adjusting the mix of beds to
better reflect the security risk of the inmate population.
State Corrections Department officials disputed many of the audit's
findings, saying they already had compensated for a projected decline in the
inmate population. Still, the report is expected to reshape the debate about
prison spending when the 1999 Legislature convenes early next year.
The auditors concluded that:
* Oregon is adding too many prison beds. Current plans will result in a
surplus of 426 beds in October 2002, rising to 1,935 in November 2004.
Cutting 400 beds could save $30 million.
* The security mix is out of balance. The report predicts an excess of 2,438
medium- and maximum-security beds, but a shortage of 1,060 minimum-security
beds when the Two Rivers prison is completed in 1999. Adjusting the mix
could save $34 million.
* Construction costs are higher than elsewhere. Oregon's average cost of
$77,649 a bed compares with about $45,977 a bed for 14 states that were
surveyed for the audit. The figures were adjusted to reflect regional
differences in labor, materials and equipment costs.
The auditors, who work in a division under Secretary of State Phil
Keisling's office, called on legislators and Gov. John Kitzhaber to
re-evaluate the Corrections Department's massive building plan, which calls
for adding 11,134 prison beds during the next 10 years.
Construction for 7,154 of those beds has not yet begun, but Kitzhaber has
approved a new women's prison and inmate intake center near Wilsonville and
new minimum- and medium-security prison sites in Lakeview, Junction City,
Madras and White City.
"Any facilities found unjustified should not be constructed," the audit states.
The expansion program was a response to Measure 11, a ballot initiative
voters passed in 1994 that set tough mandatory sentences for many violent
crimes. Original predictions that the measure would bring an explosion in
the inmate population didn't hold up, however.
Auditors said the 10-year prison population estimate has dropped from a high
of 19,592 inmates expected in 2008 to only 14,158 inmates. As of July 1,
there were 8,435 inmates in the state system.
Sen. Kevin Mannix, R-Salem, the author of Measure 11, said Thursday that a
surplus of prison beds isn't necessarily a bad thing. "I'm not going to join
in a chorus of criticism of the Department of Corrections for trying to get
ahead of the curve," he said.
And corrections officials said the audit lacked context, exaggerated the
surplus in beds and made unfair cost comparisons.
"We build prisons here out of concrete and steel that are meant to last 100
years," said Benjamin deHaan, the deputy director of corrections. "You
cannot compare those with prisons built under construction methods that
would not meet Oregon building codes and which the department believes
aren't safe."
DeHaan acknowledged that there are discrepancies between current inmate
population forecasts and the kinds of prison beds now under construction.
"But what wasn't taken into account is the fact that when construction of
medium-security beds took place, it was in accordance with the forecasted
needs at that moment," he said. "If you're already in the middle of building
a certain type of prison, you don't just stop building it."
Two new prisons that are part of the department's long-range plan already
are under construction.
Snake River, a 2,348-bed medium-security prison expansion in Ontario, is
scheduled to be complete this year, at an estimated cost of $179 million. It
is the largest state-financed construction project in Oregon history,
auditors said.
Two Rivers, a 1,536-bed medium-security prison in Umatilla, is scheduled to
be complete in November 1999, at an estimated cost of $149 million.
But construction costs are dwarfed by the cost of operating a prison for any
length of time. According to the federal Bureau of Prisons, the cost to
operate a prison during its useful life is 15 to 20 times its construction
expense.
DeHaan said the department will not automatically staff new prison capacity
if the inmates aren't there.
"It's like a school building," he said. "You build based on what you think
you need, but you don't hire the staff until you need it."
Rep. Jim Welsh, R-Elmira, co-chairman of a legislative committee that
received the audit, said he expects the Legislature to move quickly in
addressing the questions the report raises.
"We've got to be accountable to the taxpayers," he said. "They want
facilities, but they want us to do it reasonably, too."
The audit questioned the department's decision to use more than $20 million
in potential savings and contingency funds for additions to the Snake River
and Two Rivers prisons.
The Snake River project could have been completed for $138 million, which
was $6 million less than the project's projected maximum price, the report
noted.
"They had the option of stopping right there, but they didn't," said
Drummond Kahan, the administrator who managed the audit.
Instead, the department decided to spend $200,000 on a firing range, $35,000
for acoustic sound panels and $43,774 for rubberized flooring in the
gymnasium weight rooms.
The auditors said the Legislature should require the department to justify
spending outside the planned scope of work. And they urged the Corrections
Department to review its construction projects to show they are being
completed for the lowest possible cost, as Oregon law requires.
DeHaan said the department is "open to input from the Audit Division and the
Legislature about cutting costs."
"As we go through the next legislative session, it's very clear that
policies that drive costs need full discussion," he said.
James Mayer of The Oregonian staff contributed to this report.
Nena Baker covers politics for the Public Life Team. She can be reached at
503-221-8378 or by e-mail at nenabaker@news.oregonian.com. Write to her at
The Oregonian, 1320 S.W. Broadway, Portland, Ore. 97201.
-------------------------------------------------------------------
The Dire Consequences Of DARE (Boulder Weekly columnist Wayne Laugesen
says Police Chief Mark Beckner and Boulder County Sheriff George Epp
should be applauded for recently dumping DARE. Laugesen called psychologist
William Hansen, whose research formed the basis for DARE. Hansen said
the LAPD took an anti-drug model he had developed while it was in its infant
stages and ran with it. "DARE was misguided as soon as they adopted
our material, because we were off base," Hansen said. "It's outdated material
that does not work." Dare to have no drug intervention program at all.
The results will be astounding. Fewer children will use drugs, more classroom
time will be spent on legitimate education, and police will be able to focus
on crime.)
Date: Fri, 4 Dec 1998 14:21:36 -0800
From: owner-mapnews@mapinc.org (MAPNews)
To: mapnews@mapinc.org
Subject: MN: US CO: Column: The Dire Consequences Of DARE
Sender: owner-mapnews@mapinc.org
Reply-To: owner-mapnews@mapinc.org
Organization: Media Awareness Project http://www.mapinc.org/lists/
Newshawk: cohip@levellers.org (Colo. Hemp Init. Project)
Pubdate: Fri, 4 Dec 1998
Source: Boulder Weekly (CO)
Contact: bweditor@tesser.com
Website: http://www.boulderweekly.com/
Author: Wayne Laugesen (Wayne@Laugesen.com)
THE DIRE CONSEQUENCES OF DARE
Epp and Beckner are right (and we don't say that often)
Police Chief Mark Beckner and Boulder County Sheriff George Epp recently
dumped the local chapters of DARE, a national mistake known as Drug Abuse
Resistance Education. They should be applauded for their bold actions, which
hopefully will put Boulder at the leading edge of an overnight national
trend.
Publicly, Beckner says he has nothing against DARE, which every year
dispatches police officers to preach against the evils of drug use to 35
million fifth graders nationally. The police chief allows that the program
wasn't meeting the community's needs. Epp criticizes DARE for lacking
flexibility. They're being polite.
The truth: DARE led to an increase in drug abuse among teenagers.
I suspected that in 1996 when the U.S. Department of Health and Human
Services issued a report showing a rise in teen drug use of 78 percent
between 1992 and 1995 on the heels of DARE's most prolific years of growth.
Some high profile potheads at Boulder's Sacred Herb Church-where toking
joints once served as communion-also felt strongly that DARE was leading
children to drugs. And who would know better, I thought.
Shortly after the HHS report broke, I conducted some research, which
involved contacting the people who know DARE best-its founders.
I called psychologist William Hansen, whose research formed the basis for
DARE. Hansen was a professor of psychology at the University of Southern
California when DARE was started in 1983 by then-Los Angeles Police Chief
Darryl Gates, whose son was addicted to drugs. Hansen said the LAPD took an
anti-drug model he had developed while it was in its infant stages and ran
with it. More than a decade later, Hansen observed, DARE was still using the
exact same model, even though he himself had scrapped it as one of many
unsuccessful attempts to develop a workable anti-drug program for schools.
"DARE was misguided as soon as they adopted our material, because we were
off base," Hansen told me. "It's outdated material that does not work."
I called Bill Colson, the world-renowned psychologist who co-authored 17
books with the late Carl Rogers, former president of the American
Psychological Association. In the '60s and '70s, Colson and Rogers, along
with renowned psychologist Abraham Maslow, developed and popularized
psychological practices known as "experimental education," "humanistic
psychology," and "self-actualization." Their theories formed the foundation
for Hansen's research.
Like Hansen, Colson, Rogers and Maslow all eventually said "oops," regarding
the theories DARE was founded upon.
"DARE is rooted in trash psychology," Colson told me two years ago. "We
developed the theories that DARE was founded on, and we were wrong. Even Abe
Maslow wrote about these theories being wrong before he died."
Which is true, said Boulder psychotherapist Ellen Maslow, Abraham Maslow's
daughter. She called DARE "nonsense" in 1996, saying the program represented
widespread misinterpretation of humanistic psychology.
Ellen Maslow said her father's vision of humanistic psychology was
misunderstood by public educators, who bent and twisted it and ended up
making childhood "self-esteem" a central focus of public education.
Self-esteem is a central focus in DARE, and Ellen Maslow says it has led to
narcissism and self-indulgence.
Other critics of self-esteem are easy to find these days. "Saddam Hussein
and Stalin had great self-esteem," Norm Resnick, a psychologist and national
radio talk show host told me. "Children need authoritative guidance.
Self-esteem alone doesn't translate into making good decisions." Still not
convinced DARE was all bad, I contacted psychologist Richard H. Blum at
Stanford University School of Medicine. At the time, Blum was heading the
single largest ongoing study of drug education in the United States,
published as "Drug Education: Results and Recommendations.
"Basically, we have found again and again that drug education in schools
causes kids to take on drugs and alcohol sooner than they would without the
education," Blum told me.
Colson summed it up best. "As they get a little older, they become very
curious about these drugs they've learned about from police officers. The
kids start thinking, 'I don't want to say no.' Then they say, 'Didn't that
police officer tell me it's my perfect right to choose?' And thus, they
choose to experiment."
By now police departments must know this. But DARE is first and foremost
about money. According to Hansen, taxpayers spend about $125 per DARE pupil.
"What this does is channel a lot of money to police departments, and that's
why they like it," Hansen says.
Responding to Boulder's abandonment of the program, DARE spokesman Ralph
Lockridge had the gall to suggest we need more of it. The program should be
broadened to include high school students, not just fifth graders, he
claims.
"It's sort of like teaching someone 17 piano lessons in the fifth grade and
expecting them to remember anything without any reinforcement when you test
them in high school," Lockridge told the Sunday Camera.
This man obviously suffers from excessive self-esteem disorder.
In truth, DARE's expectation is far sillier than Lockridge's piano analogy
suggests. He'd be accurate to say: "It's like teaching students 17 piano
lessons in the fifth grade and then expecting them to never touch a
keyboard."
Despite their public politeness, I suspect Sheriff Epp and Chief Beckner
have figured all this out and no longer wish to sponsor a program that
spawns young drug addicts.
Unfortunately, both men have suggested some other program might replace
DARE. They should think about the lack of success world-renowned
psychologists have had in finding a way to introduce the subject of drugs
without it backfiring.
In school, students are supposed to learn. Teach them math, they'll use
math. Teach them reading, they will read. Teach them about drugs, they will
toke up.
We ought to celebrate the local dumping of DARE. Then take the opportunity
to urge the school district and local law enforcement to reject drug
education in schools. Let individual guardians of children figure out the
complex issue of adolescent drug abuse on an individual basis.
Here's a proposition for the Boulder Police Department, Sheriff Epp and the
Boulder Valley School District: Dare to have no drug intervention program at
all. Let's call it DIRE-Drug Intervention Resistance Endeavor. The goal will
be zero tolerance for drug education in public schools.
The results will be astounding. Fewer children will use drugs, more
classroom time will be spent on legitimate education, and police will be
able to focus on crime.
-------------------------------------------------------------------
Angela Davis' new crusade (Boston Globe columnist Derrick Z. Jackson
says the tenured professor who was once placed on the FBI's
Ten Most Wanted List on false charges and jailed for 16 months
before being acquitted, is calling for the abolition of prisons. For every
black male eliminated from California universities in the 1990s, the state
added 57 to its prisons. Prison has become less an institution for hardened
criminals and more of an instrument of social control for low-income people.)
From: adbryan@onramp.net
Date: Tue, 29 Dec 1998 08:44:46 -0600 (CST)
Subject: Angela Y. Davis - Justice Pioneer
To: "DRCTalk Reformers' Forum" (drctalk@drcnet.org)
Reply-To: drctalk@drcnet.org
Sender: owner-drctalk@drcnet.org
This was posted on the C-JUST list. It is a Boston Globe
article that ran earlier this month. I was wondering when
someone was going to make the prison/slavery connection.
The article contains come good stats relating to prison
growth and education shrinking.
---- Begin Included Message ----
Date: Mon, 28 Dec 1998 12:54:36 -0500
Reply-To: "CJUST-L: Criminal Justice Discussion List"
(CJUST-L@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU)
Sender: "CJUST-L: Criminal Justice Discussion List"
(CJUST-L@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU)
From: "John V. Wilmerding" (jvw@TOGETHER.NET)
Subject: Angela Y. Davis - Justice Pioneer
To: CJUST-L@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU
Angela Davis' new crusade
By Derrick Z. Jackson, Globe Columnist, 12/04/98
PALO ALTO, Calif. -- In the 1960s when she thrust her fist skyward against
oppression with the firmness of steel and issued critiques of America as
volcanic as her Afro, Angela Davis had a tremendous optimism that prisons
would become rusted hulks in an America that educated its children.
"When there were only 200,000 people in prison in the country, California
had the best public educational system in the country from kindergarden all
the way up through postgraduate," Davis said in a recent interview with the
Trotter Group, a national group of African-American columnists.
"And in a lot of ways, you could say people who wanted to get an education
could. In 1968, we had the strike at San Francisco State, University of
California-Berkeley. You had the beginning of open admissions. We had an
amazing amount of hope for the educational system."
Her hope has been shattered. The national prison population has zoomed
from 200,000 toward 2 million. African-American and Latino men now find
admission to jail far easier than college. A Rockefeller-funded study
released this fall by the Justice Policy Institute found that there are now
five times more African-American men in California prisons than in
state universities - 44,617 to 8,767. There are 53,881 Latino prisoners
compared with 30,454 in four-year state colleges.
The gulf is now so wide that Davis is on a new crusade. She is calling for
the abolition of prisons.
"Oftentimes people think I'm really a provocateur when I talk about prison
abolition," Davis said. "But there were those who felt the same way about
the abolition of slavery. There were those who assumed that slavery was
here to stay, that it was eternal. If you don't have those who are willing
to try to imagine a world where the prison doesn't loom so
large as it does today, then we'll never get there.
"Most of us can't imagine that. Most of us can't imagine living in a
society without prisons."
Davis's ability to imagine such a thing during this punishment-mad,
prison-happy era comes from her own perseverance. She was once labeled so
radical in California that Ronald Reagan, then governor, vowed that Davis
would never again teach in a state university after UCLA dropped her from
the philosophy department in 1969. A member of the Communist Party, she
was put on the FBI's Ten Most Wanted List on false charges and jailed for
16 months before being acquitted.
She now is a tenured professor at University of California-Santa Cruz. She
has published six books. When she helped organize a national conference on
prisons in the Bay Area in September, she thought that perhaps 500 people
would attend. More than 3,000 came.
The attendance, Davis said, was a sign that people are recognizing that
prison has become less an institution for truly hardened criminals and more
of an instrument of social control of low-income people whom society has
decided not to educate.
In the last 10 years, spending on corrections in California has grown 60
percent, while spending on kindergarten through 12th grade went up only 26
percent and higher education declined 3 percent. Though it costs five
times more to incarcerate someone in California than to educate them in
college ($22,000 to $4,000), California has built 21 new prisons since
1980, and only one new college campus. The top pay for correctional
officers - $50,820 a year - easily surpasses the average salary range of
$32,000 to $37,000 for university instructors.
Underfunded state colleges in turn unload their burdens on the backs of
students, raising tuitions by as much as 485 percent since 1980. For
African-American men, the tuitions are a modern poll tax. Between 1990 and
1997, African-American male enrollment in state public universities
declined by 217 students while the number of black male prisoners
increased by 12,147.
Thus, for every black male eliminated from its state universities in the
1990s, California has added 57 to its prisons. Many of the new inmates are
nonviolent offenders who could be more effectively rehabilitated with drug
treatment and education.
"We've always known that the war on drugs is really a war on the
communities that so often are victimized by the drug trade." Davis said.
"Which isn't to say that people don't have responsibility or shouldn't be
accountable. But if we don't change things, we'll say perhaps 10 years
from now that a black man in California is 10 times more likely to go to
prison than to go to college or university.
"It seems to me that with all this discussion about slavery, we ought to
bring up the discussions about the vestiges of slavery within the prison
system and the fact that it is becoming a system that is increasingly
designed to hold black people - black men, black women - behind bars,
sometimes for the rest of their lives."
Derrick Z. Jackson is a Globe columnist.
This story ran on page A31 of the Boston Globe on 12/04/98.
Copyright 1998 Globe Newspaper Company.
***
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Date: Tue, 29 Dec 1998 21:04:01 -0500
To: "DRCTalk Reformers' Forum" (drctalk@drcnet.org)
From: Paul Wolf (paulwolf@icdc.com)
Subject: re: Angela Davis
In case anyone has never heard of Angela Davis, she was a Black Panther
and a COINTELPRO target. Those are legendary credentials these days.
When she was captured by the FBI on false charges of conspiracy to
commit murder (after a shootout between Panthers and the LAPD when she
was in another city) Richard Nixon went on national TV to congradulate
J Edgar Hoover for apprehending her, calling her a terrorist. She was
jailed for a year w/o bond before trial, then a jury acquited her of all
charges. It was a false arrest to keep her off the street because she
was such a popular leader.
Now she's saying the war on drugs has always been a war on the people.
What a great ally!
-------------------------------------------------------------------
The Week Online with DRCNet, Issue No. 69 (The Drug Reform Coordination
Network's original summary of drug policy news and calls to action includes -
DRCNet projects and campaigns; Alert - show of support needed for New Jersey
needle exchange; US Congress triples military aid To Colombia; Report -
New York state now spending more on prisons than higher education; Drug war
perjury highlighted in Congressional impeachment hearings; Thousands protest
at US Army School of the Americas; Swiss legalization referendum fails, but
provides hopeful signs for future; Coalition seeking DC election results
grows; and an editorial, Criminalizing our children, by Adam J. Smith.)
Date: Fri, 04 Dec 1998 08:16:54 -0500
To: drc-natl@drcnet.org
From: DRCNet (drcnet@drcnet.org)
Subject: The Week Online with DRCNet, Issue No. 69
Sender: owner-drc-natl@drcnet.org
The Week Online with DRCNet, Issue No. 69 -- December 4, 1998
A Publication of the Drug Reform Coordination Network
-------- PLEASE COPY AND DISTRIBUTE --------
(To sign off this list, mailto:listproc@drcnet.org with the
line "signoff drc-natl" in the body of the message, or
mailto:lists@drcnet.org for assistance. To subscribe to
this list, visit http://www.drcnet.org/signup.html.)
(This issue can be also be read on our web site at
http://www.drcnet.org/wol/069.html. Check out the DRCNN
weekly radio segment at http://www.drcnet.org/drcnn/.)
PERMISSION to reprint or redistribute any or all of the
contents of The Week Online is hereby granted. We ask that
any use of these materials include proper credit and, where
appropriate, a link to one or more of our web sites. If
your publication customarily pays for publication, DRCNet
requests checks payable to the organization. If your
publication does not pay for materials, you are free to use
the materials gratis. In all cases, we request notification
for our records, including physical copies where material
has appeared in print. Contact: Drug Reform Coordination
Network, 2000 P St., NW, Suite 615, Washington, DC 20036,
(202) 293-8340 (voice), (202) 293-8344 (fax), e-mail
drcnet@drcnet.org. Thank you.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
1. DRCNet Projects and Campaigns
http://www.drcnet.org/wol/069.html#projects
2. ALERT: Show of Support Needed for New Jersey Needle
Exchange
http://www.drcnet.org/wol/069.html#chaiproject
3. U.S. Congress Triples Military Aid To Colombia
http://www.drcnet.org/wol/069.html#colombia
4. REPORT: New York State Now Spending More on Prisons than
Higher Education
http://www.drcnet.org/wol/069.html#newyork
5. Drug War Perjury Highlighted In Congressional Impeachment
Hearings
http://www.drcnet.org/wol/069.html#perjury
6. Thousands Protest at U.S. Army School of the Americas
http://www.drcnet.org/wol/069.html#soa
7. Swiss Legalization Referendum Fails, but Provides Hopeful
Signs for Future
http://www.drcnet.org/wol/069.html#droleg
8. Coalition Seeking DC Election Results Grows
http://www.drcnet.org/wol/069.html#dcvote
9. EDITORIAL: Criminalizing our Children
http://www.drcnet.org/wol/069.html#editorial
***
1. DRCNet Projects and Campaigns
To our readers: We are back after a much-needed
Thanksgiving break, and hope that everyone had an enjoyable
holiday weekend. Here at DRCNet, things are moving fast and
1999 is shaping up to be a breakthrough year for us as well
as for the movement. As we head into the home stretch of
what has been an exciting 1998, we hope that you will
consider supporting DRCNet's work. (We're facing a cash
crunch at the moment!) Why, you may ask, should you dig
deep to send us a check (or even another check), when there
are so many worthy causes and organizations vying for your
support? Here are just a few of the reasons:
* DRCNet's weekly syndicated radio news show, DRCNN, is
already being carried on over a dozen stations, in at least
three countries, after just two months of production, and
feedback from those stations has been excellent. The show
costs us around $200 per week to produce (including staff-
time), and we also need to be able to promote it to stations
across the country. A $200 donation (or eight $25
donations) will pay for one show in its entirety. A $500
donation will pay for two weeks of promotions and will help
us to get DRCNN on the air on perhaps dozens of new stations
who do not yet know that we exist. (You can hear the show
in Real Audio online at http://www.drcnet.org/drcnn/.)
Donations to support DRCNN can be made to the DRCNet
Foundation (tax-deductible), or to the Drug Reform
Coordination Network (not tax-deductible, better for us if
it's just as good for you).
* DRCNet's campus project, U-Net, has launched a nationwide
campaign in opposition to language in the 1998 Higher
Education Act which delays or denies financial aid to any
student who has been convicted of any drug offense,
including possession. Our resolution calling on the 106th
Congress to repeal the provision is already being presented
by students to their student governments on over 50 campuses
for their support. There is also media campaign in the
works, which will be launched early in 1999, in support of
this effort. Kris Lotlikar is our point person on this
project (in addition to all of his other responsibilities
here), and while he does work cheap, he cannot work for
nothing. Ten $35 donations, or one $325 donation will cover
Kris' pay and the associated expenses for a week. A $1,000
donation will fund the media campaign. (Check out the U-Net
site at http://www.drcnet.org/U-net/.) Donations to
support the Higher Education Act project, and Kris' work as
membership coordinator, must be made to the Drug Reform
Coordination Network (because of its legislative nature),
and are not tax-deductible.
* We are developing the stopthedrugwar.org web site as a
gateway to the issue and the movement. Take a look at the
initial portions, online at http://www.stopthedrugwar.org.
When complete, stopthedrugwar.org will provide visitors
pointers to news, educational resources, discussion groups,
membership and activist organizations and other
opportunities for involvement in whatever areas of drug
policy interest them the most. Help DRCNet build the
movement by supporting stopthedrugwar.org. Donations to
support stopthedrugwar.org can be made to the DRCNet
Foundation (tax-deductible) or the Drug Reform Coordination
Network (not tax-deductible). (We are developing
stopthedrugwar.org in preparation for a massive outreach
campaign to build the movement. The outreach project will
be described in another Week Online in the very near
future.)
* DRCNet continues to count on non-tax deductible donations
from our membership for our lobbying efforts. In the coming
year there will be numerous drug war-related bills on the
Hill and in statehouses across the nation. Our subscribers
will of course be alerted to them so that their voices can
be heard, both at the state and the federal level. In the
wake of the phenomenally successful 1998 election results,
it is more important than ever that lawmakers hear from
their reform-minded constituents when they consider their
upcoming votes on these issues. Most of our grants and
major gifts are made to the DRCNet Foundation, which spend
very little of its money on lobbying. Hence, your non-
deductible gifts to the Drug Reform Coordination Network,
large or small, play the most important role in enabling us
to issue our grassroots legislative alerts. Your non-
deductible membership dues of $25, or donations of $50,
$100, $250, $500 or $1,000 to the Drug Reform Coordination
Network, represent citizen action directly at work in the
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These are just a few of the things we are working on here at
DRCNet. As you can see, your support is vital to our
efforts, and every dollar produces results. As the year
winds down, please consider making a donation, or increasing
your level of support for 1998. If you'd like, please feel
free to specify a particular project or campaign with your
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To donate, please use our online registration form at
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have a credit card merchant account.
***
2. ALERT: Show of Support Needed for New Jersey Needle
Exchange
Diana McCague will appear in New Brunswick Municipal Court
on December 17th at 1:00pm on a single charge of syringe
possession stemming from her arrest by investigators from
the Middlesex County Prosecutor's office on September 29,
1998 (see http://www.drcnet.org/wol/061.html#chaibust). We
must show the judge, the prosecutor, the community, and New
Jersey's elected officials that Diana does not stand alone
in her commitment to keeping drug users and their families
and communities in New Jersey safe from HIV and other
disease and injury which can result from the use of illicit
drubgs.
There will not be a trial. Diana is expecting to plead
guilty under the terms of a negotiated plea agreement.
However, Diana will make a statement to the court and it is
possible that the judge will question her before imposing
sentence. The sentence could include: up to two years
driver's license suspension, up to six months in jail and as
much as $1000 in fines.
An orderly but passionate crowd of supporters will send the
desired message -- New Jersey's elected officials will be
watching. This is an opportunity for those concerned about
the issue of syringe exchange in New Jersey to make their
commitment known! For further information, call the New
Jersey Harm Reduction Coalition at (732) 247-3242.
***
3. U.S. Congress Triples Military Aid To Colombia
Congressional Republicans this week passed an initiative
which will triple the amount of aid, mostly in the form of
military hardware, being sent to Colombia. The move, which
surprised even Andres Pastrana, Colombia's new president,
appears to have been the result of direct communications
between congressional Republicans and General Rosso Jose
Serrano, chief of Colombia's national police force.
The approval of military aid, including upgraded Huey and
Blackhawk helicopters, directly to the National Police,
worries critics who point out that the police have
consistently blurred the lines between fighting the
narcotics trade and fighting the insurgency forces within
the context of Colombia's thirty-five year old civil war.
Adam Isaacson of the Center for International Policy told
the New York Times that the move has the potential to
increase America's involvement in that conflict. "It's
another step in the wrong direction" he told The Times.
This comes at a time when Pastrana has already involved his
government in the most aggressive peace initiative in recent
memory. Already, Pastrana has pulled his military forces
from an area the size of Switzerland as a show of faith
leading up to the beginning of talks with the rebels.
The increase in aid "surprised everybody," said Rodrigo
Lloreda, Colombia's defense minister. Statements such as
this underscore the disconnect between Congress' actions and
the will, or at least the plans of the new government,
despite the feelings of the U.S. lawmakers who engineered
the increase. "I look at this as giving Colombia the
support it needs to do what it wants to do," Senator Mike
DeWine (R-OH) told The Times. "It will put the government
in a better bargaining position."
But such statements only serve to highlight the blurring of
the lines between counter insurgency, in which the U.S. has
previously avoided getting involved, and counternarcotics
operations which, though largely unsuccessful, some would
say futile, remain a darling of the drug warriors. In fact,
in an apparent effort to justify the crossover in the use of
American Aid by Colombia, many advocates have begun to use
the phrase "narco-guerillas" when referring to the rebels.
Cynthia Arnson, Senior Program Associate for International
Policy at the Woodrow Wilson Center, told The Week Online
"The trouble is that it is very unrealistic when we hear
officials from either nation struggling to make rhetorical
distinctions between the two operations, when those on the
ground know that no such distinction is being made in
practice."
The difficulty stems from the fact that some portion of the
nation's estimated 15,000 rebel troops are making money from
protection taxes levied against traffickers operating in
regions under their control. The situation is further
complicated by the fact that experts agree that all sides in
the conflict are benefiting from drug profits to one degree
or another. Colombia's previous president, in fact, became
persona non grata in the US after allegations that he took
over $6 million from traffickers for his election campaign.
The country's former drug czar is currently in prison
awaiting trial on charges of drug corruption.
***
4. REPORT: NY State Now Spending More On Prisons Than Higher
Education
A report issued this week (12/1) by the Correctional
Association of New York and the Washington DC-based Justice
Policy Institute reveals that over the past ten years, New
York State has increased its spending on prisons by nearly
as much as it has decreased spending for higher education.
The culmination of ten years of education cuts and ten years
of prison spending increase is that in 1998, the state is
spending $1.5 billion on higher education and $1.76 billion
on prisons.
Robert Gangi, executive director of the Correctional
Association of New York, told The Week Online that it is the
drug war, above all else, that has driven New York's prison
population to 70,000 and prison spending to record highs.
"New York is home to the infamous Rockefeller Drug Laws,
perhaps the most extreme set of mandatory minimums in the
country, which have resulted in a stream of low-level, non-
violent offenders" said Gangi.
Gangi said that while the trend of less spending for
education and more for prisons was not surprising, he was
shocked by both the magnitude of the shift and by its
disparate racial impact.
"At one time in New York, higher education spending
outstripped prison spending by a 2-1 margin. Today we're
spending $260 million more on prisons than on education.
What was most disturbing however were some of the radial
breakdowns. New York State now has more people of color in
prison on drug convictions than are enrolled in the state
university system.
"The reality is that people of color, arrested and convicted
for drug offenses, mostly in New York City, are being used
as grist in an economic mill which provides jobs in the
corrections industry in rural upstate towns. Those towns,
of course, are primarily white."
Gangi believes that it is imperative to reform the
Rockefeller drug laws.
"The Rockefeller laws, because of their severity and because
they've been in place for some time now, are symbolic. If
we can make a dent here in reforming them, it will have a
trickle down effect on the rest of the country. The numbers
in this report reflect the situation in one state, but they
are indicative of what is going on in other states as well."
(The Correctional Association of New York/Justice Policy
Institute report is available online in full at
http://www.cjcj.org/jpi/nysomfront.html.)
***
5. Drug War Perjury Highlighted In Congressional Impeachment
Hearings
The ongoing congressional hearings on Presidential
Impeachment took a turn of interest for drug policy
reformers this week as Harvard Law School professor and
Author Alan Dershowitz testified that the President's
perjury pales in comparison with the culture of lying which
has become ingrained in the criminal justice system.
Dershowitz cited, among others, the Mollen Commission's
recent findings, which claimed that perjury was so rampant
among police officers that the practice had been given its
own term in some law enforcement circles, "testilying," and
Joseph McNamara, former chief of police of San Jose and
Kansas City, and current fellow at Stanford University's
Hoover Institution (and board member of the Drug Policy
Foundation), who said that "hundreds of thousands of law-
enforcement officers commit perjury every year testifying
about drug arrests alone."
Dershowitz testified that not only did the President's
misstatements under oath constitute the least important and
damaging form of perjury (lying to avoid personal
embarrassment where the lie was not materially relevant to
the substance of the proceedings), which he called the
nation's most common and least prosecuted crime, but that
perjury is prosecuted selectively, if at all, with
motivations ranging from the political to the tactical.
Dershowitz is far from the only national figure to point out
the prevalence of perjury in criminal, and specifically drug
enforcement, as evidenced by McNamara's quote. But it was
encouraging for reformers to hear the problem referenced on
such a national stage by such a respected figure.
The Week Online spoke with Professor Dershowitz.
WOL: In your testimony, you spoke about the impact of the
drug war, and its prosecution, on the criminal justice
process, particularly with regard to perjury by police
officers. What has been the impact of the drug war on the
system as a whole?
Dershowitz: Well, I think that drug wars have done more to
undercut civil liberties than perhaps any other phenomenon
in recent history. Start with the fact that we call it a
war, and all's fair in war. In the minds of many officers,
and prosecutors, they are just doing what they need to do to
fight the war.
WOL: So you believe that Prohibition is a failed policy?
Dershowitz: Criminalizing drugs has actually created crime,
and criminals. The drugs are out there, and we've insured
that they're valuable. The drug war corrupts by its very
nature.
WOL: How prevalent, in your view, has perjury become in the
prosecution of the war?
Dershowitz: Perjury by police is rampant, and the vast
majority of it concerns the circumstances of searches for
drugs. It (the drug war) has had a deeply corrosive impact
on the system in that regard. In most cases, there are no
complaining witnesses in a drug transaction, and so it is
far easier to convict if testimony is tailored to what the
prosecutor needs to hear.
WOL: How can this problem be addressed?
Dershowitz: We as a society are going to have to think very
hard about making changes in our response to drugs.
Obviously we need to decriminalize marijuana, that's an easy
issue. There are just no good arguments against it. We
also need to look into medicalizing heroin addiction, as
they are doing in some places in Europe. As to cocaine,
that's a little tougher issue. But there is no doubt that
there has to be a better system than we have now. We need
an open-minded inquiry into our drug policy, because the
current policy is causing tremendous damage.
***
6. Thousands Protest at U.S. Army School of the Americas
Last week, as many as 7,000 people showed up at Fort
Benning, outside of Atlanta, to protest the continued
operation of the Army's "School of the Americas" which is
housed at the base. The school, which trains specially
selected personnel culled from the militaries of Central and
South America, is known to its detractors as the "School of
the Assassins". It counts among its 60,000 graduates
Panamanian strongman Manuel Noriega, former Argentine
dictator Leopoldo Galtieri, Haitian coup leader Raoul Cedras
and Salvadoran death squad organizer the late Roberto
D'Aubuisson.
According to organizers, more than 2,300 people risked
arrest by entering the base. The protest was by far the
largest of the eight, which have been held annually since
1990. Last year, more than 600 people were arrested for
entering the base, and more than thirty of them served six
month sentences because it was their second such offense.
***
7. Swiss Legalization Referendum Fails, but Provides Hopeful
Signs for Future
In our last issue before the Thanksgiving holiday, we
reported that voters in the nation of Switzerland were to
decide November 29 on the legalization and regulation of
drugs (http://www.drcnet.org/wol/068.html#droleg). Droleg
did not pass, with 72% of voters opposed and 28% in support.
An exit poll found, however, that of those who voted against
the initiative, 40% would have voted for legalization of
marijuana only, yielding a majority in support of marijuana
legalization and suggesting hope for future reform in that
area. Opposition to the initiative focused on the concern
that by legalizing all drugs while their neighbors continue
to have prohibition, Switzerland could face large numbers of
"drug tourists" and resulting nuisance problems.
Earlier in the year, Swiss voters approved prescription
availability of heroin by a margin of 70-30, and doctors now
have the right to prescribe heroin to addicts. Opponents of
drug policy reform have portrayed the Droleg vote as a
reversal. Droleg's non-passage may, however, reflect
caution rather than outright opposition to the concept of
legalization. Swiss voters may simply want to see how well
heroin maintenance works, rather than proceeding swiftly and
dramatically to full legalization, before any other country
in the world. It is notable that a full 28% of Swiss voters
were aware enough of the consequences of prohibition to
support full legalization all at once and in advance of any
other European country. How would the Swiss vote have gone,
were it in the context of a European- or world-wide policy
shift? Perhaps more than 28% would have supported it.
***
8. Coalition Seeking DC Election Results Grows
Nine organizations, including the Washington, DC chapter of
the League of Women Voters, the Republican National African-
American Council, the Gertrude Stein Democratic Club and the
Libertarian National Committee have all filed "friend of the
court" briefs in support of the DC government and ACTUP DC's
lawsuit seeking the release of the results of the DC Medical
Marijuana, Initiative 59. The results of the election have
been kept secret in the wake of language added to the DC
appropriations bill by Congressman Bob Barr (R-GA)
forbidding the District from spending any money on any
initiative which would reduce, in any way, penalties for
marijuana possession or use.
The growing coalition of supporters is evidence, say
activists, of the federal government's inept handling of
everything having to do with medicinal marijuana. Robert
Kampia, director of governmental relations for the Marijuana
Policy Project told The Week Online, "The federal government
blesses us with new allies every time it rears its fascist
head on this issue. Groups like the League of Women Voters
were probably wholly unaware of the issues involved in
medical marijuana until the feds decided to try to quash the
results of a democratic election. Even the Washington Post,
which has been notoriously bad in its coverage of this
issue, has devoted an editorial as well as serious news
space to medical marijuana in the wake of the Barr
amendment.
"Congress is so beside itself on this issue, so eager to
make sure that sick people go to prison for their personal
medical choices," said Kampia, "that they are willing to run
roughshod over the constitution in an effort to impose their
will. The elections proved, however, that their will and
the people's will are two entirely different things. We can
only thank them for their absolute irrationality. It has
given activists the opportunity to involve and to educate a
much broader range of concerned citizens and organizations."
***
9. EDITORIAL: Criminalizing our Children
Last month a report was issued by Amnesty International
detailing the treatment of children by the United States
criminal justice system. The report found that there are
over 11,000 children, under the age of eighteen, currently
being held in prisons and other adult correctional
facilities in this country. The report also cited over
89,000 cases of children being placed in solitary
confinement for periods longer than 24 hours. According to
Amnesty, such treatment offends internationally accepted
standards. The U.S. incarcerates more of its children than
any other nation on earth.
For several years now, law enforcement officials and
politicians have courted the fears of the American public
with dire warnings of "super-predators," a generation of
children so violent, so evil, that they are barely human.
Despite several well-publicized cases, however, the fact is
that murderous children are the rare exception. Most
children who come into contact with the justice system are
there for far less nefarious reasons. Even of those who are
transferred into the adult criminal justice system, more
than half, according to the Center for Juvenile and Criminal
Justice, have been charged with non-violent offenses.
Children who are incarcerated are more than three times as
likely to re-offend as children charged with similar
offenses who are sentenced to a non-incarceratory
alternative. And children under the age of eighteen who are
incarcerated with adults are more than three times as likely
to be beaten by staff, more than five times as likely to be
raped, and more than eight times as likely to commit suicide
than children who are incarcerated in juvenile facilities.
Still, in the last session of Congress, legislation was
introduced which would have mandated that states transfer
out of the juvenile system children as young as fourteen who
are charged with certain offenses, both violent and non-
violent (including drug-related). The bill would have
encouraged, though not required, the transfer of thirteen
year-olds charged with such offenses.
The incarceration of children, large numbers of children,
horrendous as it is, should not be surprising in light of
current policies. It is, in fact, the predictable end-
product of a society that has slowly but surely criminalized
youth itself. In cities across the country, curfews have
been instituted, both at night and during school hours. The
effect, in some cities, is that for up to eighteen hours a
day, it is illegal for a teenager to be out in public
without his or her parents. When kids are allowed out on
the streets, they are often insufficient public spaces for
their activities. Go find a group of kids hanging out
anywhere in this country, and there's a good chance that at
least one of them has a key chain or a t-shirt emblazoned
with the phrase "skateboarding is not a crime." In many
parts of the country, running away from home is a criminal
act, regardless of the conditions of the home that the child
is fleeing.
Drugs, of course, play an enormous role in the
criminalization of youth. "Protecting the children" is the
most common excuse given for the imprisonment of hundreds of
thousands of American adults jailed for consensual acts.
But despite the ongoing war, the number of kids using drugs
has been unaffected, and they are using at younger and
younger ages. For many kids, drug use is very simply an act
of rebellion against an adult culture that seems oppressive.
The answer, of course, is to lock up more kids. Arrest them
for marijuana, arrest them for cigarettes, arrest them for
beer, arrest them for being out too late. If we're not
catching enough of them, drug test them. Drug test them for
school sports, for the chess club, drug test them when they
apply for drivers' licenses, or simply drug test them all.
Or else, as the town of Peekskill, New York is attempting to
do, place surveillance cameras in the places they hang out.
Find them. Catch them. Punish them. Our national motto,
it seems, is that it takes a prison to raise a child.
In the 1960's, the baby boomer generation, the ones whose
children are now such a threat to the fabric of society,
wore t-shirts warning not to trust anyone over thirty.
Today their sentiment is not to trust anyone under eighteen.
Perhaps they've forgotten what it's like to be young. Or
perhaps it is a generation so full of self-righteousness, so
convinced of their own infallibility and superiority, that
they simply don't trust anyone at all who is not a member of
their ranks. Whatever the reason, they are doing no favors
for their kids.
Today's children are growing up in a world where the state
has declared them suspect, and has been given absolute
authority to control their lives. Far from the day when an
errant child would be brought home by an officer of the law
to be dealt with by his or her parents, that child is now
routinely taken down to the station, booked, and thrown in a
cell with all the rest of the criminals. The parents, who
in another time would have had a long talk, or grounded the
kid or even tanned his hide for, say, smoking marijuana or
even dropping a tab of acid, will now frantically try to
secure the services of a lawyer (if they can afford one) and
will be left to hope and pray that the child is not
sentenced to jail or even held before trial, where he is at
risk of being raped or beaten.
Our children are criminals, and they know it all too well.
Why then should they obey our rules? Why should they
respect our authority? Why should they play the game? Out
of fear? That works only when they are in your line of
vision. Outside of that, your words, your rules, your
wishes will be respected only if the child respects you.
And respect is not what we engender when we send the state
out after our children. Jail them and they will reject
society. Surveille them and they will retreat to the
shadows. Drug test them and they will find substances for
which you are not testing. Teach them that the state is
all-powerful, that the power of the state is to be used as a
primary method of controlling behavior, and they will grow
up to use the power of the state to do things unintended by
our Constitution. Or they will overthrow it.
We will not solve the problems of adult society by making
criminals of our children. And we will not solve the
problems of our children by locking them up as if they were
adults. There are more than 11,000 children sitting right
now in American jails and prisons. Many of them are being
beaten. And raped. And scarred for life. Hundreds of
thousands of other children, living "free" are under the
constant scrutiny of the state. It is a perverse way to
raise the first American generation of the twenty-first
century. They will not always be children.
Adam J. Smith
Associate Director
***
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[End]
to the 1998 Daily News index for Dec. 3-9