Pubdate: Mon, 24 Nov 1997

STUDY CASTS DOUBT ON HARSH DRUG SENTENCES

New York Times News Service

BOSTON Among drug offenders sentenced to long, mandatory terms in
Massachusetts state prisons, nearly half have no record of violent crime,
according to a study of the state's prison population released Monday.

``Mandatory sentencing laws are wasting prison resources on nonviolent,
lowlevel offenders and reducing resources available to lock up violent
offenders,'' said William Brownsberger, the study's principal investigator
and an assistant attorney general, who conducted the study at Harvard
Medical School while he was on leave.

Drugpolicy experts say the study will add valuable facts to the growing
debate around the United States over the efficacy of tough minimum
sentences for drug crimes.

``We have to respond to drug dealing forcibly, and incarceration is often
an appropriate response,'' said Brownsberger, ``but today we are going too
far.''

The study of 1,175 inmates in the Massachusetts prison system also found
that 82.9 percent of the drug offenders were black or Hispanic, though they
make up just over 9 percent of the state's population.

The data are likely to be used by some who contend that the sentences put
away dangerous criminals who belong in jail.

But when researchers looked closely at the criminal records of a sample of
151 inmates, Brownsberger said, they found that nearly half had never been
charged with a violent crime in Massachusetts, only onethird had ever been
convicted of a violent crime and only one in 12 had been convicted of a
serious violent crime like assault with intent to kill.

The study ``is quite important because it's statespecific, and it's
quantitative, and in particular, it's grounded in data,'' said Jonathan
Caulkins, a drugpolicy researcher at CarnegieMellon University.

Caulkins was the principal researcher on a Rand Corp. study released in May
that also harshly criticized mandatory minimum sentences for drug offenses,
which became popular during the crackrelated crime scares of the 1980s.

The study argued that incarceration is so expensive about $20,000 to
$30,000 a year for each inmate that it would be far more costefficient
to shift the emphasis to oldfashioned enforcement techniques and
traditional prison sentences, or to spend more money on drug abuse and
prevention.

Researchers say mandatory drug sentences are seen as a major cause of
prison overcrowding, budget overruns and, in some cases, simple injustice
as when a nonviolent drug offender ends up serving more time than
someone convicted of manslaughter or armed robbery.

The Massachusetts Sentencing Commission, a panel of judges, prosecutors and
other criminaljustice experts, has recommended that judges be allowed to
depart from mandatory sentences when a defendant does not have a serious
criminal record. The state Legislature is expected to take up its plan next
year and it is expected to be hotly debated.