Edge of the Cave

I recently read in the Tyler Morning Telegraph that Smith County residents are faced with the prospect of having to raise $85,000.00 to expand our jail facilities. Currently the jail designed for 611 inmates is housing 797. Prisoners are being farmed out to other facilities and additional staff is being hired. If a new facility isn't build then Smith County residents will be burdened with even higher costs by continuing to pay for others to house their prisoners. This is interesting since we are unable to pass a bond issue to improve our public schools. The whole issue of jails and prisons gives local focus to a national crisis.

Okay, there are a few observations that I must make for this missive to make sense, so please bear with me.

There are three autonomous, yet compatible approaches addressing human behavior. The first is ethics, which is an effort to reach the highest value of a person. Ethical rules can be followed even if one is alone on an island. Next is morality, which are rules governing the interaction of individuals in a society. Lastly is criminal law. Society deems some offenses of moral rules to be so unacceptable as to require punishment as a crime.

Punishment is justified on one or more of the following reasons:

1. Separate the offender from society because he is likely to repeat his crime

2. Deter others from committing the same crime

3. Rehabilitate the offender

With me so far? We're almost through the academic stuff. To justify a rule of morality and, most especially law, there must be a negative effect on one's neighbors caused by the conduct.

A conservative will argue that the government has no place invading the privacy of its citizens and should hold spending down to basic governmental functions. A conservative believes that the government should act as a catalyst for a free enterprise economy-which will solve many of society's problems without governmental interference. So what's wrong with that? Well, it is the application of these conservative principles that is the rub.

A large percentage of the people in our prisons are serving sentences for victimless crimes related to private use of drugs. Once in prison they are not providing any service for the free enterprise system but, instead, are the absolute ward of a communistic system. The $50,000 per year society is paying for these people to not work is a drain on our economy and each year they are in prison makes it less likely they will be able to reenter society as a productive, employed, tax paying citizen. Most recently our state and federal governments have discovered it cannot afford to house all of the people we have incarcerated for terms decades long and are considering massive early paroles.

One would have to be quite creative to legitimately apply any of the four reasons for punishment to victimless drug crimes. Certainly past experience is less than supportive.

Wonder what would happen if we let out of prison those guilty of victimless crimes and required them to work for a living like the rest of us? What if we quit spending billions of dollars in our " Viet Nam " war against drug lords and desperate peasants who have no other crop to grow? What if the drugs were made legal like Scotch whisky? Would not the drug lords and their operatives selling their poison on our school grounds go bankrupt overnight? Would not that give the government opportunity to set up rehab and educational systems that would be more effective than kicking in doors of private homes? After all the government would garner billions of savings each year from their losing war on drugs to finance such programs and still have money to give back to us.

One could argue that many of the drug related crimes with a victim such as theft would be dramatically decreased if addicted offenders had an alternative to paying street prices for illegal drugs such as access to affordable or free legal drugs, rehab, and treatment.

The question isn't whether any of us should be doing drugs without a specific medical reason-I certainly don't, and would be horrified if I found out my kids did, (although, in fairness I do partake of the single malt Scotch in my bar from time to time). We should probably be worrying about the promiscuous doling out of prescription drugs to patients suffering from the normal anxieties of life.

The question is what should our response be to the private use of illegal drugs. Certainly anyone driving the streets under the influence of drugs or Scotch is affecting the rights of his neighbors and should be punished as a criminal. This is a different situation than breaking into a home. Invasion of privacy, deprivation of liberty, with its resultant drain on society doesn't seem to follow the philosophy of a true "Conservative." It doesn't seem to me that the Liberals are pushing this extreme reaction to victimless crimes. I can't imagine a Libertarian condoning this level of governmental interference with its citizens. The only group I can imagine whose philosophy would be consistent with the illegality of drugs are the drug lords themselves.

My vote is that we give up the burden of supporting people who have done nothing to me or others, tell them to get a job and pay taxes, and spend the extra money on something that will actually make a positive difference in our lives.