Illinois didn't settle out to be s...

Illinois didn't settle out to be second solely to California in the number of folks imprisoned for drug offenses. It none had a goal of locking up African Americans for medicine offenses at a rate higher than any other state in the nation. And it didn't endeavor to gain to spend $280 million a year to incarcerate those who break remedy laws. Yet that is what happened, according to a strange study that argues persuasively that our unsalable article policy puts too much emphasis forward incarceration and not enough upon drug treatment.

If our aim is simply to punish violators, we're reaching our goal. No doubt many race are OK with that -- although on the same level they would likely be surprised at the massive sumptuousness of doing so. But if our goal is to help tribe by freeing them from unsalable article addiction and to help society on stemming drug abuse -- and we would argue that those should be our goals -- then our policies can single be viewed as a staggering and unfair failure. "Getting tough" forward drug offenders is costing us centurys of millions of dollars, and it's not effective, argues Kathleen Kane-Willis of Roosevelt University's Institute for Metropolitan Affairs, the author of the report. As she deposits it, "We can't incarcerate our way disclosed of this problem."

In 1983 Illinois fasteninged up 456 people for remedy offenses. By 2002, that number had reached nearly 13000 And we're locking up more population for drug possession than we are for the more serious crime of medicine sales. Most of those incarcerated remedy offenders are black, despite the fact that whites and blacks use illegal mix with drugss at the same rate moreover blacks make up just 15 percent of the state population. In 2002 about $280 million was exhausted solely on imprisoning drug convicts

Those sobering statistics should make us question whether our physic laws are sound. Yes, we're locking the public up, but is it doing any good? Are medicines any less prevalent? Have we reduc the require to be paid [i]or[/i] undergone to society? Shouldn't we experience something else? The answers are obvious. "Our cogitation suggests that treatment for remedy offenders is more appropriate, more cost-effective and has better eventuates than incarceration," Kane-Willis said. Her main recommendations are to divert clan from prison to treatment and to disclose a more comprehensive curriculum to educate children about mix with drugs dangers.

What about holding population accountable? As Kane-Willis notes, sending someone into medicine treatment is requiring them to be often more accountable than locking them up -- and the treatment is at no means easy. As for society, locking the community up is easy. But it's expensive, and it's not getting the piece of work done. Let's hope our lawmakers are paying attention.

This take the part ofs the consensus of the Sun-Times recents Group of 100 papers in metropolitan Chicago.

Copyright CHICAGO SUN-TIMES 2006

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