The Drug War: Availability and Crime

Read two great bits about the drug war yesterday. First, from a letter by Ronald Shafer in the 12/30/2008 Wall Street Journal:

To believe that legalizing drugs would slash crime and violence is a pipe dream. Does anyone really think that the thugs and killers in the drug trade would suddenly become law-abiding insurance salesmen? Certainly drug addiction should be treated as a health problem. But it makes no sense to expand the availability of drugs that kill and, more often, destroy the futures of tens of thousands of young people every year.

Note the emphasis on availability. Now, from an article about Ecstasy (aka MDMA) the 12/20 Holiday Double Issue of the Economist (p133):

Ironically, once it became illegal, MDMA's recreational use exploded.

Making drugs illegal does not decrease availability. Instead it has turned our schools into distribution centers. Usage of harder drugs increases because they're more cost-effective for smugglers. During Alcohol Prohibition consumption shifted from wine and beer to hard liquor for that reason.

Most of the problems related to drugs, including the deaths, come about because drugs are illegal. Crime and violence a pipe dream? Look at alcohol prohibition:

Click on the graph to enlarge it. Do you see the huge drop in homicide after Prohibition ended? Do you see the jump in crime after Nixon declared the War on Drugs? The graph comes from Jeff Miron on Alcohol Prohibition.

What happened to the thugs and killers after Alcohol Prohibition? Apparently they stopped murdering people until the drug war gave them a reason to start again.

Mr. Shafer - I'm sorry your son died as a result of using LSD. But your answer is wrong. There are about 2 million arrests a year now, and 500,000 non-violent drug offenders behind bars. The drug war devastates poor communities, increases crime, and wreaks havoc on Latin America. It also wastes a huge amount of money. And like Alcohol Prohibition, it just doesn't work. It won't bring your son back. He died, in part, because drugs are illegal. Keeping them illegal will kill more like him.

The history of Alcohol Prohibition gives us a tremendous lesson. Why do we continue to reject it?

Recession, Crime and Lawyers

A couple months ago on my Albany Lawyer blog I did a post about how difficult economic times are not necessarily bad for criminal defense lawyers.

In many areas of the economy a recession means a slowdown in demand. People cut back on buying presents or on taking vacations. But for defense lawyers the sad truth is that demand can grow.

First, as I mentioned in that post, desperation leads to more crime. For some it's the paycheck to paycheck life and the challenge of paying all the bills comes to a head. This leads to irrational and dangerous decisions just to keep up - perhaps stealing from their employer or shoplifting from a store. For others the stress causes a different kind of decision, involving illegal drugs or driving home after using legal drugs like alcohol. More of these crimes means more arrests, driving up demand for defense attorneys.

The other side of this coin is the cash-strapped states, cities and towns. Scraping for more revenue wherever they can find it, it's easy to increase fines and surcharges on "criminals." I read an article not too long ago that found towns in Massachusetts wrote more tickets in years after the budget was voted down. I'd swear the State Police are writing more tickets recently, perhaps because of NY's huge deficit.

In the good old days -- well 5 years ago -- a first-time DWI offender in NY would get a reduction to DWAI and pay a fine of $380 including surcharge. Probably a couple hundred extra on assorted other costs.

Now in many cases there's no reduction. With the new surcharges and the DMV assessment, it's now well over $1600 ($500 minimum fine, $400+ surcharge, and $750 to DMV). That's four times what they would have paid just 5 years ago.

That leaves out the insurance impact. So now the economic rationale for hiring a lawyer is much more compelling.

And if all that isn't enough, the Albany DA is talking about pursuing forfeiture of vehicles in DWI cases as an "alternative revenue stream." Soon we will be charging our clients even more money to save their car.

While all these government efforts help make me rich, I'm opposed. For one thing, using traffic and criminal fines to raise revenue is regressive -- the burden falls far more heavily on the poor. Most people agree that people with more money should pay more taxes than people with less money. In a progressive tax system, those with more pay at least as high a percentage of their income as those with less.

That's not how it works in the traffic and criminal tax system. Fines are generally the same regardless of your income. You get tagged going 96 in a 65 and you'll pay about $1000 (not counting insurance) whether you make $20K or $200K. That's 5% of the poorer guy's income and 0.5% of the rich guy's. Then the rich guy probably hires a lawyer like me who saves him more than $500 of that.

Besides the regressive taxation problem, the real problem is that the so-called criminal justice system should not be concerned, at all, with revenue. It should be about justice. Why do so many forget that?