LOCK UP THE DANGEROUS ONES, HELP THE REST

In one of those reports I like to call a light-on-our-society matter, the
Associated Press and The Christian Science Monitor recently reported that
about one in 37 U.S. adults was incarcerated at the end of 2001, or had
been imprisoned sometime in their adult past.

That frightening, maddening and saddening statistic came from a report
released by the Justice Department's Bureau of Justice Statistics this month.

These numbers do not count those who have done jail time for DUI or
shoplifting, or misdemeanor domestic violence, the three crimes a reporter
sees most often while covering courts in Kitsap County.

The 5.6 million people in the U.S. who have had "prison experience," either
current or in their past, according to the Justice Department, did hard
time in either state or federal prisons.

If those jailed for spousal violence and driving high or drunk were added
in, the percentage of Americans who have done behind-bars-time might reach
one in every five adults.

Last month, the Bureau of Justice reported that 2.1 million Americans were
in federal, state or local custody at the end of 2002.

Between 1974 and 2001, the number of current or former inmates in the U.S.
rose by almost 4 million people.

Now, I've covered enough violent crime to have moved from anti-death
penalty to pro-death penalty in some cases. I think murderers, rapists,
child molesters and armed robbers should go to prison and stay in prison.

But we don't have 2.1 million armed robbers, raypos, chimos, and killers in
our prisons.

According to the Justice Department, almost 50 percent of the people now
locked up are incarcerated in connection with some type of drug offense.

We have non-violent marijuana growers, crack cocaine users, and meth heads
cluttering up our prisons, when what many of them need is treatment, not
punishment.

If you use violence in the course of selling your drugs, you should be in
jail. But if all you are doing is supplying a demand, well, isn't that
capitalism? I don't do hard drugs. I don't smoke pot.

I haven't snorted anything other than nasal spray for my sinuses in 30 years.

I drink red wine with dinner and a beer or two on a hot summer night once
in awhile.

I don't drink and drive.

It's not about me or mine.

I am still against imprisoning sick people and weak people unless they
resort to violence.

Lock up the violent and the violently crazy and help the rest.

In a country where one in three people is now overweight and one in five is
obese, why are we only locking up drug users?

The cost to a society of unhealthy, obese people is staggering. But we
aren' t locking them up.

Junkies are no different than the chronically obese. They are sick, not evil.

We are a society that is failing the weak among us. For a Christian
country, we act very un-Christ-like concerning our drug abusers.

And how about all the alcoholics driving around drunk? Why are they less
guilty than drug users?

Help the junkie the way we now try and help the alcoholic. Let's quit
punishing the non-violent drug offenders in our midst.

Quit singling them out while ignoring drunks and gluttons.

We should be pursuing the dangerous psychopaths and pedophiles who littler
our streets with their very presence, not those who need a toke, a snort or
a shot to see the day through.

They need our help and our prayers, not our condemnation.