Study questions drug sentences

WASHINGTON (AP) With a new debate beginning over cocaine penalties, a Rand
Corp. study concluded Monday that mandatory minimum sentences are far less
effective at reducing drug use and drugrelated crime than normal law
enforcement and treatment of heavy users.

Mandatory minimums quickly drive up the price of drugs as criminals seek
larger rewards for risking such sentences. But because the cost of keeping
those criminals in prison is so high, after just two years equal spending on
conventional law enforcement and drug treatment begins producing far greater
reductions in crime and drug use, said study leader Jonathan P. Caulkins of
Rand's Drug Policy Research Center.

``Mandatory minimum sentences appear costeffective only to the
pathologically myopic,'' because their advantage over other strategies is so
shortlived, said Caulkins, a Carnegie Mellon University professor.

The nonprofit think tank's study calculated that if $1 million more were
spent on each drug strategy, over 15 years:

Mandatory minimums would reduce national cocaine consumption by 13 kilograms.
Conventional enforcement would cut it by 27 kilograms; treatment of heavy
users would slash it by more than 100 kilograms.

Conventional law enforcement including more arrests of drug dealers,
confiscations, prosecutions and standardlength prison terms would
eliminate 70 percent more crimes against people than mandatory minimums. The
average mandatory minimum sentence, usually triggered by possession of a
fixed amount of drugs, is 6.7 years; the average conventional sentence is 1.1
years.

Treatment of heavy users would reduce about 10 times more serious crime
against people and property than conventional law enforcement and 15 times
more than mandatory minimums even though an average of only 13 percent of
those receiving treatment kick their drug habits.

Because nearly all the cost of treatment, $1,800 per person, occurs in the
first year, incarceration initially looks better. But after the second year,
as the cost of imprisonment mounts, treatment becomes dramatically more
costeffective as benefits from heavy users who quit drugs continue without
additional cost, Caulkins said.

``Who has a twoyear time horizon? Members of Congress and state
legislatures,'' Caulkins said in an interview, offering an explanation for
the political popularity and growth of mandatory minimums since the 1980s.
The federal government and a large majority of states have such sentences.

A new debate is beginning over the federal minimums for cocaine five years
in prison for possessing or selling 5 grams of crack cocaine or 500 grams of
powder cocaine.

In 1995, the Federal Sentencing Commission recommended equalizing the
penalties for possession and sale of the two varieties, partly because of
complaints of racial bias. More than 90 per cent of defendants in the more
heavily penalized crack cases are black, compared with only 25 percent of
powder defendants.

But Republicans in Congress and President Clinton rejected that on grounds
that crack, which is made from powder, is easier to distribute and damages
more neighborhoods. Attorney General Janet Reno suggested more modest
adjustment.

Two weeks ago, the commission proposed fiveyear minimums for sale of 25 to
75 grams of crack, sale of 125 to 375 grams of powder cocaine, and possession
of 500 grams of either.

Rep. Bill McCollum, RFla., said Monday the House crime subcommittee he
chairs would hold hearings on the proposals by summer.

McCollum criticized the Rand study. ``They miss the principal value of
mandatory minimums: the deterrent message that certainty of punishment
gives,'' he said. ``There's no way to count the kids deterred from drugs in
the first place.''

Clinton's drug policy chief Barry McCaffrey agreed with Rand's thesis.
``Swiftness and surety of sentencing, not just the length, are key to
assuring the deterrent message,'' McCaffrey said. ``We cannot simply arrest
our way out of the drug problem: Law enforcement must be linked with drug
treatment.''

Republican Sen. Phil Gramm of Texas conceded that imprisonment ``is not the
cheapest way to deal with drug crime,'' but said shorter sentences let
criminals out to ``drain far more money and anguish from our society.''

Harvard Law Professor Philip B. Heymann, formerly Clinton's deputy attorney
general, said, ``Congress and the president are inclined to do what feels
good: Lock people up for a long time.''

``What works are things that get all over the addict, like treatment, even
compulsory treatment and drug courts that slap them in jail if they drop out
of treatment,'' Heymann said.