Why is there rhetoric about many people "imprisoned for non-violent drug crimes" but not for other "non-violent crimes"?

[PseuTonym]

For example, there is white-collar crime involving fraud, rather than violence.

There are prostitution-related crimes.

There’s also a case such as the following:

Amy McElhenney, age 25, was arrested on May 25 for allegedly having sex with one of her male students at Hebron High School in Carrollton, Texas. Under a Texas law passed three years ago, teachers who have sex with their students may be convicted of a felony and sent to prison for up to 20 years.

The boy in question was 18.

If he had not been a student, he would have been considered a consenting adult. But he was a student.

When the Texas law was originally drafted, it was limited to students 17 years of age and under. But when the bill came to the floor of the house, it was amended, and the age provision was dropped.

 

[Mike_from_NJ]

I think the main difference is that drug violators tend to be suffering from a disease, addiction, whereas most other non-violent criminals are not. For some they feel drug treatment should be applied far more often than jail.

On top of that, it could be argued that a high percentage of non-violent drug offenders aren’t hurting other people while in non-drug cases that percentage is likely far lower.

Regarding the case you mentioned I agree that the fact the student was of legal age should have been taken into consideration. To me that is more of an ethical issue than a legal one, as we for good reason frown upon people in positions of power acting that way (e.g. psychiatrists are not to date their patients). At first glance I personally think she probably should have had her teaching license revoked, but not been arrested.

 

[SyroMalankara]

For example, there is white-collar crime involving fraud, rather than violence.

There are prostitution-related crimes.

There’s also a case such as the following:

Amy McElhenney, age 25, was arrested on May 25 for allegedly having sex with one of her male students at Hebron High School in Carrollton, Texas. Under a Texas law passed three years ago, teachers who have sex with their students may be convicted of a felony and sent to prison for up to 20 years.

The boy in question was 18.

If he had not been a student, he would have been considered a consenting adult. But he was a student.

When the Texas law was originally drafted, it was limited to students 17 years of age and under. But when the bill came to the floor of the house, it was amended, and the age provision was dropped.

Why should a teacher sleeping with a student get leniency, simply because the student was male and the teacher female?

 

[Horton]

I think the main difference is that drug violators tend to be suffering from a disease, addiction, whereas most other non-violent criminals are not. For some they feel drug treatment should be applied far more often than jail.

On top of that, it could be argued that a high percentage of non-violent drug offenders aren’t hurting other people while in non-drug cases that percentage is likely far lower.

Regarding the case you mentioned I agree that the fact the student was of legal age should have been taken into consideration. To me that is more of an ethical issue than a legal one, as we for good reason frown upon people in positions of power acting that way (e.g. psychiatrists are not to date their patients). At first glance I personally think she probably should have had her teaching license revoked, but not been arrested.

The idea addicts have a “disease” and just need treatment is somewhat of a myth. Also the idea drug/alcohol criminals aren’t hurting other people is a big myth.

By the time most drug/alcohol offenders have to serve time in jail or prison, they’ve done treatment, often multiple times. In the prison system I worked in we had several men who had 15-20 DUI convictions. Obviously treatment never worked. In cases like the very best option to protect the community is to keep them out of it.

Drug addicts do hurt people. First and foremost are their families. For an active addict the most important thing in their life is getting high. Everything else takes a backseat. In addition active addicts tend to be abusive toward their family, not always physical, but always emotionally.

Drug addicts hurt the people they steal from to get the drugs they want. The people who’s checks they forge, or credit/debit cards they steal and on & on.

 

[SyroMalankara]

If there are additional circumstances beyond drug addiction, sure, perhaps jail time would help rehabilitate. However, a teenager caught with some alcohol, weed, or abusing prescription – jailtime? Maybe not. Depends on the over all circumstance.

 

[DarkLight]

I think a lot of it is because drug use is seen as a largely victimless crime. (Of course, actions they take to get drugs is not.) It’s also because a major proportion of non-violent criminals are drug convictions.

Regarding treatment…I’d kind of like to see the statistics on what kind of treatments were offered. There’s a lot of evidence that traditional addiction counseling doesn’t really meet the standards of medical treatment - it just doesn’t have a success rate much above baseline. My impression is that treatments involving prescription assistance do much better, but those are often harder to get covered and tend to take longer than insurance companies like.

For what it’s worth, I have seen people complain about jail sentences for crimes like petty theft. A lot of people think it might be more worthwhile to have an increased proportion of community service and restitution penalties, especially as there’s a lot of evidence that keeping people in the community reduces recidivism.

 

[CatholicSpirit]

The world we live in has countries with state-sponsored terrorism and “mafia states.” This corruption incorporates the drug-trade. While addictive, and many are not fully able to decide whether or not to participate in drug-use, those illegal and terrorist-affiliated enterprises seek to use profits to harm the populace. For example, North Korea will likely sponsor methamphetamine markets in the United States, and when properly positioned, an act against a military target, governmental target, political target, or innocent population will suffer the impact of it’s true nature. It is true that such nations find more pleasure than we do in the imprisonment of Americans. Thus, we are destroying our own. But, there are many who also acknowledge that in the United States, the prison system is a for-profit system. Can there ever be an answer? No matter how you “cut it,” we lose in the war on drugs, as we have and continuously generate the most POW’s.

 

[joeybaggz]

But, there are many who also acknowledge that in the United States, the prison system is a for-profit system.

Something more insidious may be going on here. Imgine if Jeff Bezos who owns Amazon and is worth, oh about 70 billions dollars, buys for profit prison systems. He makes another 70 billion profit from them. With the 140 B, he buys enough congressmen and senators to pass a law that not buying from Amazon is a felony and people found guilty will go to prison, his prisons. Warning, shopping at Wal-Mart (the only other place selling anything given the destruction of bricks and mortar retail that is going on) will be a federal offense.

Big Brother is coming, and he’s bald !!:whacky::whacky::whacky:

 

[DarkLight]

Something more insidious may be going on here. Imgine if Jeff Bezos who owns Amazon and is worth, oh about 70 billions dollars, buys for profit prison systems. He makes another 70 billion profit from them. With the 140 B, he buys enough congressmen and senators to pass a law that not buying from Amazon is a felony and people found guilty will go to prison, his prisons. Warning, shopping at Wal-Mart (the only other place selling anything given the destruction of bricks and mortar retail that is going on) will be a federal offense.

Big Brother is coming, and he’s bald !!:whacky::whacky::whacky:

They already have an issue that for-profit prisons tend to hand out inmate infractions more readily - which in turn leads to those inmates being turned down for parole. Meaning they end up in prison longer.

There’s also the fact that a lot of contracts mask the costs of private prisons by putting limits on the type of inmates they will accept, so they don’t have to accept more expensive inmates.

 

[ChurchSoldier]

It’s racial politics.

And we should outlaw private prisons.

 

[frobert]

For example, there is white-collar crime involving fraud, rather than violence.

There are prostitution-related crimes.

There’s also a case such as the following:

Amy McElhenney, age 25, was arrested on May 25 for allegedly having sex with one of her male students at Hebron High School in Carrollton, Texas. Under a Texas law passed three years ago, teachers who have sex with their students may be convicted of a felony and sent to prison for up to 20 years.

The boy in question was 18.

If he had not been a student, he would have been considered a consenting adult. But he was a student.

When the Texas law was originally drafted, it was limited to students 17 years of age and under. But when the bill came to the floor of the house, it was amended, and the age provision was dropped.

[Grand jury declines to indict female teacher](Grand jury declines to indict female teacher Read more at http://www.wnd.com/2006/09/38039/#rd63wYcSQuzKTuLE.99 The age of consent in Texas is 17 years The Denton County grand jury refused to enforce it in this case, siding with those who believe “age of consent” means precisely that.)

The age of consent in Texas is 17 years

The Denton County grand jury refused to enforce it in this case, siding with those who believe “age of consent” means precisely that.

 

[DarkLight]

It’s racial politics.

And we should outlaw private prisons.

It is rather unfortunately reminiscent of convict leasing.

 

[DarkLight]

Something more insidious may be going on here. Imgine if Jeff Bezos who owns Amazon and is worth, oh about 70 billions dollars, buys for profit prison systems. He makes another 70 billion profit from them. With the 140 B, he buys enough congressmen and senators to pass a law that not buying from Amazon is a felony and people found guilty will go to prison, his prisons. Warning, shopping at Wal-Mart (the only other place selling anything given the destruction of bricks and mortar retail that is going on) will be a federal offense.

Big Brother is coming, and he’s bald !!:whacky::whacky::whacky:

Actually, there’s also some evidence that private prison backed lobbying groups have been involved in pushing for mandatory sentencing laws.

 

[mikekle]

Something more insidious may be going on here. Imgine if Jeff Bezos who owns Amazon and is worth, oh about 70 billions dollars, buys for profit prison systems. He makes another 70 billion profit from them. With the 140 B, he buys enough congressmen and senators to pass a law that not buying from Amazon is a felony and people found guilty will go to prison, his prisons. Warning, shopping at Wal-Mart (the only other place selling anything given the destruction of bricks and mortar retail that is going on) will be a federal offense.

Big Brother is coming, and he’s bald !!:whacky::whacky::whacky:

Thats basically what the pharmaceutical companies have going for them, its all about where someone gets a particular drug, if someone goes to a legit doctor and is given oxycodone, it is perfectly legal and fine, but if they go to the local dealer for the exact same drug, it is now illegal.

Drugs are also something they know enough people are willing to break the law for, this in turn makes it extremely lucrative for prisons and law enforcement in general, more illegal users mean justification for larger and larger LE budgets, more agents, more prisons, etc, but the kicker is, to have this ‘war on drugs’ be continual, there must be a steady flow of drugs into the country, if they suddenly shut down all the cartels and the drug flow trickled down to almost nothing…well, there could not be much of a war on drugs anymore.

I already believe the cartels and US Govt are in bed together, but I have a sneaky feeling it goes much deeper than that and the corruption is probably more far reaching than any of us could ever imagine.

 

[HerCrazierHalf]

For example, there is white-collar crime involving fraud, rather than violence.

There are prostitution-related crimes.

There’s also a case such as the following:

Amy McElhenney, age 25, was arrested on May 25 for allegedly having sex with one of her male students at Hebron High School in Carrollton, Texas. Under a Texas law passed three years ago, teachers who have sex with their students may be convicted of a felony and sent to prison for up to 20 years.

The boy in question was 18.

If he had not been a student, he would have been considered a consenting adult. But he was a student.

When the Texas law was originally drafted, it was limited to students 17 years of age and under. But when the bill came to the floor of the house, it was amended, and the age provision was dropped.

The big problems with drug crimes are

1. that both the perpetrator and the victim are the same.
2. such crimes are used to target minorities.
3. in many cases the sentences cause more damage than the drug use.

Regarding prostitution, if not for the human trafficking I’d be against those laws too.

 

[Peebo]

Apparently the new AG J.Sessions is going to reverse the decision by the Obama administration to curtail the use of private prisons and is giving them the green light…

huffingtonpost.com/entry/doj-private-prisons-sessions_us_58af529ce4b0a8a9b780669a

of course they are in the business of making profits…so the more they can lobby politicians for more sentencing and longer prison time… the better for them…they don’t encourage rehabilitation because the more recidivism by released offenders then the profits will keep increasing…

thesocietypages.org/socimages/2013/01/25/race-rehabilitation-and-the-private-prison-industry/

 

[HerCrazierHalf]

And every decade or so they will wonder why certain communities have such poor relationships with law enforcement. Or why riots break out.

 

[mikekle]

If you really want an eye opener, look up crime data for your area and find out how much is drugs or drug related. A local news station here did a story about this recently, they claimed like 78% of ALL crime was drugs/ drug related!

If that were to go away, what crimes would they be left with? Would they be able to justify the HUGE law enforcement budgets they currently have?

It comes down to the fact, they need to have certain laws that they know enough people are willing to break, in order to make it lucrative enough, if it wasnt drugs, it would be something else.