Bill

I've been following this debate for more than three decades, and it was repeated complaints from right-wing conservatives about "liberal judges" who "refused to impose proper punishments" that have led to these sorts of "no discretion" laws for repeate offenders. True, that is what he was being tried for. But, in addition, he was also being tried for being a "repeat offender" who had established a pattern of behavior as described by the mandatory sentencing laws in Florida. Ultimately, he admitted that he was, in fact, a repeat offender (a bad move, really; if he had contested his record of offenses, he would have given the judge an opportunity to find a loophole; he probably didn't believe that this result could possibly ever happen to him).

On the one hand, I do feel it is an inhuman sentence for such a petty crime.

On the other hand, I do think that "something extraordinary" is required when you are dealing with a career criminal like this. It is just that I very strongly feel that "life without parole" is not the answer for petty drug addicts.

We ought to establish (but of course, this costs more money than just regular prisons, which is why it won't happen) some sort of a special prison program for people who are criminals solely because they are drug addicts. These people can be reformed at some point, and at that point, they can be very useful to society "on the outside." It seems to be a combination of getting clean, getting convinced, and just "growing up." On the other hand, there are addicts who might never successfully graduate from such a program, and they will need to be warehoused until they die..... Yes. That is called an "as applied" analysis. The law is unconstitutional as applied to some particular state of affairs.

However, if the US Supreme Court is willing to hold (as it did this year) that two consecutive sentences of 25-years-to-life in prison is not unconstitutional for two separate petty thefts amounting to a total of $150 worth of video tapes, then it is going to be a judge with real balls who declares that a life sentence for stealing $20 from an undercover cop during a drug sting operation is a sentence that is unconstitutional as applied to that particular set of facts.

California has been battling this whole issue for a number of years now, and there is actually a right-wing group who tracks judges who let people off from these mandatory "three-strikes" situations. They then turn around and oppose them the next time their name comes up on the ballot or as an appointment for higher office, etc.

The California law has a number of situations which allow for judicial discretion, plus the California Supreme Court long ago held that a judge always had an equitable right to impose a lesser sentence so long as the rationale for the lesser sentence was clearly and distinctly set forth in the judge's order. (This allows proper appellate review if the prosecutor appeals, and there were a number of early cases where the California Supreme Court reversed due to the lack of this sort of an indication in the official record.) The judges closing comments from the article say this: Of course, let us not forget that there is a safety valve on this whole business, as any prisoner can always petition the Governor or the President for a pardon. Sooner or later, in egregious situations, somebody liberal enough to grant a pardon in these circumstances will be elected. The guy just has to wait.

Here in Florida, he probably won't have much luck with Jeb Bush, but Florida is still a largely Democratic state (both US Senators are Democrats, for instance), so there is hope for this schmuck (unlike Kansas, where the Republicans have a better than 60/40 edge in registration). A Democrat governor might come along someday, and at the point in time when said Democrat leaves office, and thus won't care about angering vocal minorities, that is the time when pardons like the one for this case might well be granted (look at all of the controversial pardons that Bill Clinton issued right before he left office). But it will be years into the future before that situation can possibly arise.

== Bill

braces_for_impact

Does anyone have any references on the costs of keeping inmates in our prison system? I always hear about how expensive it is to do this, and I often wonder why.

I have been in the unfortunate position in the past of supporting a family of four on $12,000 a year. Now granted we didn't require armed guards and such, but these figures seem awfully inflated to me. I mean, $560,000 until age 75?

Ronin

In a perfect world, Bill...but I agree.

Still, all drug users are not criminals (drug laws notwithstanding) and do get clean or responsible and grow up.

These types of cases are the extreme and not the norm...little comfort to Mr. Reed, though, who should be doing six months and given the opportunity to rehabilitate or commit a more serious offense.

Bill

THIS seems to be a reasonable guesstimate. There is even a pie graph from California that shows the breakdown of where the money goes (not surprisingly, nearly half goes for "security"). The average seems to be around $20K per year per prisoner.

== Bill

auto-da-fe

Well, according to this;

So it depends on each state's investment in private prisons, which have been growing in popularity in recent decades.

So for states with some private institutions, it costs $30,145.35 / year / prisoner. For states with little to no private institutions, it can cost up to $45,051.95 / year / prisoner.

The article states that Mr. Reed is 37. That means it can costs anywhere from $1,145,523.30 to $1,711,974.10 (if the site I gave above is accurate) to house Mr. Reed until he is 75 (38 years).

So, it looks as though the estimate in the article may have actually been low-balling it.

edited to add:

In the article, it states $560,000 until age 75, which is 14,736.84 / year, or $40.37 per day. The lowest per day diem I could find was in Idaho at $60.21. I wasn't able to find Florida's per diem.

Godless Dave

And some of us, despite not being clean or wanting to, still act responsibly and grown up. I'm not going to admit to committing any felonies, but I will point out that possession of more than 30 grams of cannabis is a felony in my state. Draw your own conclusions.

A Pumpkin Drifter

He shouldn't be committing crimes in the first place but I agree the sentencing is extreme. A year or two at the most with a drug rehabilitation type program making sure he is off drugs completely.

Bill

My opinions on this topic are strongly colored by my experiences with my first wife, who was a very hard-core drug addict. (When we got married, I had no idea what I was in for......) I spent three years trying to get her to "reform herself." It never took, so I spent three more years trying to get rid of her, and ultimately, I managed to move enough times, and far enough away, that she couldn't find me again......

There probably are lots of users of illegal drugs whose only crime is to buy and use illegal drugs. We can argue all day as to which is the larger group: those who commit no crime other than buying and using and those who necessarily commit additional crimes either to support their habit or as a consequence of their drug use (such as "driving under the influence").

I have great sympathy for those who are in the former category. If society is committed to not banning alcohol or tobaco, then I find it hard to keep pot outlawed, and a case can be made for other drugs as well. Perhaps we ought to take the route Mexico has taken and simply make all drugs available "over the counter." It used to be that way in this country, a hundred years ago, and I don't think we were worse off for that state of affairs.

But for folks in the latter category, whose only ability to use drugs comes from leading lives of continual crime, I have no sympathy. I was exposed to a lot of this type of person due to my former wife. These people have to commit crimes day in and day out to get the money they need to support their drug habits. My ex-wife was a walking crime wave. Someday, I ought to write a book about my experiences with her. Perhaps now, more than a decade after the last time I saw her, the pain has receeded enough that I could write objectively enough to make this a worthwhile project.

But people who are in this second class, which is the same class that the original subject of this thread is in (people who commit crimes to support their drug habits), cannot be easily reformed; and I would guess that a substantial number can never be reformed before they die.

But my point is that some can be reformed. Perhaps even a majority can be reformed at some point in their lives. But they aren't going to be reformed by a long term in prison with no treatment program and no options to get out short of death.

I think that society has a right, a duty even, to remove career criminals from its midst, even if the long string of crimes amounts to petty misdemeanors. A person who steals ten $15 video tapes per day ($150 retail value) to support a "single small dose per day" drug habit is still stealing about $55K of merchandise per year. If they only get caught a very small percentage of the time, then sure, you are prosecuting them for a $150 theft, but by locking them up, you are preventing $55K worth of thefts per year. And stealing $150 per day supports only the lowest-grade sort of a drug habit. Addicts who survive by theft of merchandise alone generally must average several thousands of dollars per day to support a "medium grade addiction." The "fences" who traffic in this sort of stolen merchandise generally give less than pawn shops give, and pawn shops generally give less than $0.10 to the dollar of retail ("new") value. So, somebody who steals $5K per day is probably only supporting a $250 a day heroin habit.

Needless to say, thefts of that magnitude, day in and day out, aren't going to go unnoticed. So, rather than traffic in stolen merchandise, the next step is generally residential burglary, where you can usually find cash sitting around (cash is never discounted, of course), and perhaps other valuables. One of my ex-wife's "friends" broke into my apartment and ripped me off for about $25K worth of computer equipment. The police figured that the guy got no more than $500 for the stuff when he fenced it. I settled with the insurance company for $12K and was out about $13K myself. Plus, I had to find a new insurance company (they "blackballed" me, among other things). This is the incident that finally convinced me to divorce my ex-wife, for what its worth.

And when they finally caught the guy, he copped a plea and was out in a few months. The $500 worth of cocaine he bought probably didn't last him a single night.......

==========

In any case, I do believe that sentencing career criminals for petty crimes can be a good thing to do. However, when it is obvious that the criminal is a drug addict, then they ought to be treated differently, and some attempt at treatment and rehabilitation ought to be made. Just assuming that drug addicts are automatically sociopaths who just need to be locked up for the rest of their lives is wrong.

== Bill

Loren Pechtel

I've seen figures in the $30k-$50k/year range.

Bill

The link I gave earlier in this thread showed Florida with the lowest cost-per-prisoner of all the states studied (which only included those states who released figures on their state web site). The Florida number was $15,136 per prisoner/year, which multiplies out to be $575,168 for a 38-year incarceration. So, my guess is that the article was using a number derived from the official State of Florida prison system costs.

HOWEVER, the latest figures from the official Florida web site show a much higher cost: There is again a pie graph on THAT PAGE which breaks down what the costs are for. In Florida, 56% is for "Security." The amazing part is that there is no real difference between the costs at "major" prisons versus the costs of the system as a whole (including work release camps, etc.). This seems contrived to me.....

Anyway, 38 years at $17,575 is $667,850.

== Bill