There are millions of people wandering American streets who are wanted by police. We have a huge and unsolvable problem. Just in the state of Pennsylvania alone there are 1.4 million fugitives and we have absolutely nowhere to put them. The failed Drug War has fueled this dirty little secret. The vast majority of the fugitives are wanted for drug violation or violations of probation or parole connected to what else but more drug violations.
The system is broken beyond repair and lost in the mix of that vast abyss of fugitives are arsonists, forgers, robbers, rapists, burglars and of course killers.
If all the people wanted on drug related arrest warrants picked a single day to surrender our entire criminal justice system would collapse. There would be no way to provide the judges, prosecutors, public defenders or jail facilities to deal with this mess.
Overwhelming and breaking the system can do what many in this country want, to bring an end to the American Drug War once and for all. I’d pick July 4th 2007 as the day to force the issue. Remember the courts are closed this day and the jails, and prisons would be way undermanned. Total amnesty for drug offenders is the only possible fix for this unusal kind of protest demonstration.
paul i agree with your libetarian view on drugs very much. but the only part of the liberatians i can not go with. is the lack of securing our borders.
ReplyDeleteSecuring our borders would allow more freedom to be returned to Americans...
ReplyDeleteExcellent idea, Paul! I only see two real problems: first, you'd have to get the word to all these 'fugitives'. Second, the first few dozen at any station probably _will_ end up incarcerated; convincing those few to "take one for the team" might not be too easy.
ReplyDeleteI do love the concept, though.
Well said Paul. As someone who formerly worked in law enforcement and now works in higher education, I have long seen how many of our social problems come from the neglect of our education system. The neglect often stems from the fact that more and more funds are being diverted to our growing prison-industrial complex so we can enforce our draconian sentences for non-violent drug offenses. As a consequence even a public university education is sliding beyond the reach of an typical middle class family, and the average graduate goes out into the world with a degree in one hand, and tens of thousands of debt in the other. Meanwhile prison guards are making more a year than teachers. Nowhere is this more apparent than in California, where I am originally from.
ReplyDeleteI have always agreed with your stance on drugs, especially marijuana, which is harmless at worst and quite possibly has some beneficial effects that we are just beginning to understand. Why should we the taxpayers spend more to incarcerate someone for a non-violent drug offense than it would cost to send them to Princeton?
I would like to see your idea taken a step further. Let's limit the prison population to those who truly need to be isolated from the rest of society, and invest the savings in our education system. I am willing to bet that violent crimes and property crimes would go down when people have a sense that the society they live in has made an investment in their future, and were not warehoused in run-down schools that nobody cares about.