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| 1. |
Marijuana Reform |
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"To protect men from their own folly is to people the world with fools."
---Herbert Spencer
The word "marijuana" is a Mexican slang word for the dried leaves and flowering tops of the hemp plant which is used as a smoking preparation. Throughout history, this same plant has been called a variety of names, depending upon the locality and the speaker, such as ganja, cannabis, pot, tea, weed, dope, smoke, grass, herb, reefer, kif, hemp and Mary Ha Ha. There are actually only two main varieties of the plant, Cannabis Indica, or Indian Hemp, and Cannabis Sativa, or English Hemp. The first recorded use of the hemp plant was in China circa 4000 BC, over six thousand years ago.
Back in the early 1980's, Field Research Corporation conducted a survey regarding marijuana use in California. Their results showed that there were over two million Californians who consider themselves regular users of the drug. This study excluded persons who smoked it on an irregular basis, or who had tried it only a few times. Two million out of a State population of roughly twenty-four million means that about one out of every twelve Californians smoke marijuana on a regular basis, or nearly ten percent of our population.
There is a vast, untapped market for marijuana, or hemp, in today's economy, but---as I will show---the recreational use of cannabis represents only a very small fraction of the total market possible.
* * * * * *
According to a recent television newscast, marijuana is now the fourth largest cash crop grown in America today, with an annual yield of some $25 BILLION. That figure, of course, represents only the recreational use of hemp. The figure would be much higher (no pun intended), if cannabis (or hemp or "pot") were legalized and assimilated into our sagging economy.
But what are some of the other, non-recreational, uses for marijuana?
The fibers of the marijuana plant are the longest, strongest natural fibers in the world. I'm sure everyone has heard of hemp rope. Hemp, of course, is marijuana. And the strength of hemp rope is legendary.
Two centuries ago, nearly 80% of all the clothing in the United States was made from hemp fiber. Cultivating marijuana was once so important to the economy that, in 1762, the Virginia colony imposed penalties on those who did not grow hemp. And between 1619 and 1769, the British Crown subsidized American farmers to grow marijuana because the fiber was desperately needed for the canvas of their sailing ships, and for paper on which to print maps, Bibles and currency.
Semi-commercial tests conducted by the USDA in 1916 produced paper made from the woody portion of the stalk which corresponded very closely to No. 1 machine finish paper, according to the specifications of the United States Government Printing Office. The same experiments determined that this paper had greater flexibility and is up to sixteen times stronger than paper made from wood pulp.
The government currently imports this paper.
Researchers also noted that every acre devoted to hemp cultivation, on an annualized basis, has the sustained pulp-producing capacity equivalent of four acres of commercial woodland.
I don't have any accurate figures on just how much paper is consumed annually in the United States, but I am sure you will agree that it is quite substantial, probably in the neighborhood of several hundreds of thousands--or even millions--of tons per year. Considering that our current paper is, for the most part, made exclusively from wood pulp, one can easily see that this represents hundreds of thousands of acres of trees, annually, going just for pulp production.
Since it takes over thirty years for a crop of trees to reach maturity, it should come as no surprise that, as the demand for more and more paper increases from year to year (thanks, in part, to the ever-increasing burden of government paperwork and regulations), tree farms are unable to keep pace with the increased demand and the cost of paper products continues to rise. Since a crop of marijuana reaches maturity in less than ten months and, as previously mentioned , the amount of pulp yield per acre is four times that of trees, it should be possible to meet our economy's growing demand for paper with less than one-thirtieth the amount of land under present cultivation.
Of course, what all this talk of using marijuana pulp to produce paper means, is that millions of trees would no longer be needed for paper production and could then be diverted to other uses, such as in manufacturing furniture, or in making lumber for use in new home and building construction. As we all know, when a product's demand rises relative to its supply (witness our recent electricity "crisis), the price of that product also rises. But the other side of that economic coin is the fact that when a product's supply rises relative to its demand, the price of that product always falls. With a decreased demand on our nation's forests, we could expect a corresponding decrease in the cost of new housing and construction materials, a decrease in the price of quality, all-wood furniture, and an increase in the availability of forest areas for recreational and conservation purposes.
The use of marijuana pulp in paper production alone is, I believe, a very compelling economic reason to urge its immediate and complete legalization. And, I must admit, the economic ramifications of marijuana in the paper market are among my favorite economic reasons for making marijuana legal once again.
But there are other economic reasons as well.
As previously mentioned, 80% of all clothing was once made from hemp fibers. The extreme durability, strength and low cost of the hemp fiber, when woven into cloth, can be used for everything from the canvas on sailboats, to long-wearing pants and shirts, to the finest of linens. An article in the February 1938 issue of POPULAR MECHANICS called marijuana "a new cash crop with an annual volume of several hundred million dollars." The same article announced to American industry "a durable raw material with more than 5,000 textile products ranging from rope to fine laces and more than 25,000 cellulose products ranging from dynamite to cellophane."
In 1979, Alexander Sumach of Ontario, Canada, compiled "The Canada Report", the most comprehensive summary of the uses of this annual weed. He reported that the hemp fiber is half as strong as silk, three times as strong as cotton, and one-third stronger than flax. It is suitable for all types of clothing, upholstery and industrial uses and, unlike many synthetic textiles, it requires no coal or petroleum in its manufacture.
Another by-product of the hemp plant is an enormous mass of seed, which is one-third oil by weight. It is rich in protein and natural sugars, and is an excellent oil for salads and cooking. The oil needs no deodorizing and can be hydrogenated to form a solid shortening.
It can be used in making paint, varnish, plastics, linoleum, lamp oil, soap and lubricants with a wide variety of uses (in World War II, it was used as a lubricant for high-altitude aircraft). As late as 1935, 116 million pounds of marijuana seeds were squeezed by the paint and varnish industry for use in their finest paints and varnishes.
When mixed with the feed of livestock, the hemp seed will safely and organically evacuate worms, relieve colic and chronic diarrhea, and induce milk-flow in dairy cattle.
It is estimated that the cultivation of several million acres of hemp seed could supply the equivalent of 100,000 barrels of oil per day.
Raising a crop of hemp requires no specialized equipment, no inter-row cultivation, no pesticides and no herbicides. It can also be used as a weeder in a crop rotation system and, although it is not a legume, the hemp plant's penetrating tap root brings nutrients to the surface after harvest.
Marijuana was the chief cash crop in Kentucky between 1792 and 1865, with a production in 1860 of over 40,000 tons. It was so important to the economy a century and a half ago that there were places with names such as Hempstead County, Arkansas; Hempstead, New York; and Hemphill, West Virginia---names that reflect important economic activities in those regions when the towns were founded, and names which are still with us today.
Economically, the foregoing represents an overwhelming abundance of reasons why marijuana should be immediately legalized. In the course of my research on this subject, I am sure that I have missed a great many other economic uses for the hemp plant, uses which we of the twenty-first century have never even considered, but which would rapidly come to light as businessmen and entrepreneurs experimented and sought them out.
But we must not overlook the importance of cannabis in medicine.
* * * * * *
Medically, the extract of cannabis was introduced into Western pharmacopoeia by O'Shaughnessy in 1839. It is a documented treatment for a wide variety of medical conditions including, but not limited to: the relief of migraine headaches; as an anti-convulsant and anti-epileptic; and an anti-depressant and tranquilizer. And, while we may scoff at a report of its effectiveness as a cure for gonorrhea published over a century ago, a report from Czechoslovakia in 1960 showed that cannabidolic acid, a product of the unripe hemp plant, has bacteriocidal properties.
Recently, in the course of a study of the effects of cannabis on driving, it was incidentally discovered that cannabis lowers intraocular pressure, thus being possibly useful in the treatment of glaucoma.
In the mid-fifties, Dr. Van M. Sims reported to MEDICAL WORLD NEWS: "Marijuana is probably the most potent anti-epileptic known to medicine today."
In 1971, Dr. Harold F. Hardman, then with the Defense contracting group at the University of Michigan's Department of Pharmacology, reported effects of profound hypothermia and felt that marijuana derivatives could be potentially quite useful in brain and traumatic surgery.
Cannabis has several important advantages over other substances used as analgesics, sedatives and hypnotics:
---The prolonged use of cannabis does not lead to the development of physical dependence;
---There is minimal development of tolerance to cannabis products;
---Cannabis products have an extremely low toxicity (the oral dose required to kill a mouse has been found to be forty thousand times the dose required to produce typical symptoms of intoxication in man); and
---Cannabis produces no disturbance of the vegetative functions, whereas the opiates inhibit the gastrointestinal tract, the flow of bile and the cough reflex.
Reynolds, in 1890, summed up thirty years of his clinical experience using cannabis, finding it useful as a nocturnal sedative in senile insomnia, and valuable in treating dysmenorrhea, neuralgia, migraine headache and epileptoid muscle spasms.
Cannabis has been used successfully in the treatment of withdrawal of alcohol and opiate addiction, and is an effective anti-depressant.
Its effectiveness as a childbirth analgesic, an antitussive, a topical anesthetic and an anti-asthmatic have all been documented.
In 1937, Sasman listed twenty-eight pharmaceuticals containing cannabis. Cannabis was still recognized as a medicinal agent in that year, when the committee on legislative activities of the American Medical Association concluded as follows:
"There is positively no evidence to indicate the abuse of cannabis as a medicinal agent or to show that its medicinal use is leading to the development of cannabis addiction. Cannabis at the present time is slightly used for medicinal purposes, but it would seem worthwhile to maintain its status as a medicinal agent for such purposes as it now has. There is a possibility that a re-study of the drug by modern methods may show other advantages to be derived from its medicinal use."
Of course, unless existing restrictive state and federal laws governing marijuana are changed, there will be no future for either modern scientific investigation or controlled clinical trail by present-day methods.
And until both State and Federal authorities begin respecting medical marijuana as the passage of Proposition 215 has demanded, tens of thousands of our fellow Californians---our mothers, brothers, children, friends---will be denied the medical relief they need, want, deserve and have a legal right to in order to alleviate symptoms associated with AIDS, cancer treatment, depression and a host of other diseases and conditions
Medicine, being an empirical art, has not hesitated in the past to utilize a substance first used for recreational purposes in the pursuit of the more noble purposes of relieving pain, healing and teaching us more of the workings of the human mind and body. In fact, Morton "discovered" ether for anesthetic purposes after observing medical students at "ether frolics" in 1846.
The active constituents of cannabis appear to have remarkably low acute and chronic toxicity factors and might be quite useful in the management of many chronic disease conditions.
* * * * * *
So far, I have discussed the economic benefits of a free market in marijuana, and some of the possible medical uses of the drug. As an American consumer, I am concerned about rising prices and our sagging economy, an economy which could be revitalized by a simple stroke of the legislative pen. As a member of the health care team, I am concerned that millions of patients are denied access to a potentially helpful drug. As a candidate for public office, I am concerned about our growing bureaucracy and the burden of taxation which is increased by the enforcement of anti-marijuana laws to the tune of $75 million per year for only the law enforcement costs in California alone.
And as a Libertarian and a human being, I am concerned about the rights of the individual to life, liberty and property, which I hold as sacrosanct, and which these laws make void and negate.
The human suffering imposed upon those apprehended by police for marijuana use is impossible to measure in dollars and cents. To the apprehended user (who, in a majority of cases, has had no prior criminal record), the arrest, pretrial incarceration, bail-bond application and court proceedings are very expensive, terrifying and demeaning. The experience---whether or not it results in a jail sentence---seriously disrupts career, education, family, friendships and life in general. Even a short jail sentence will expose the marijuana user to a world of vastly more serious drug use and crime; and a criminal record seriously impedes his or her job opportunities after release.
These terrible punishments, and the constant fear of them, for personal conduct which harms no one, create a profound and growing alienation and disrespect for the law among users, their families and friends. The disrespect is compounded by the use of undercover agents who win the trust and affection of marijuana users---only to betray them in the misappropriated name of "Justice." Their resentment is further fired by the law's hypocritically lenient attitude toward drugs such as alcohol, tobacco and caffeine.
Marijuana use statutes, like other victimless "crime" legislation, are enforced in a discriminatory manner, most heavily against racial, ethnic and cultural minorities, and against the poor in general. This means more arrests, more prosecutions, more convictions and longer sentences. Thus, the alienation and disrespect for the law, occasioned by the criminalization of marijuana use, is most pronounced among the very groups in which distrust and alienation are already dangerously high.
So long as these hypocrisies exist, and so long as it is the judgment of the government that marijuana is so dangerous that it should be criminally punished, state and local efforts at drug education will continue to suffer a crippling credibility crisis.
I've already mentioned that the law enforcement costs to taxpayers amounts to over $75 million per year. This figure does not include the costs incurred for bail, time lost from work, nor does it include attorney's fees. The cost of prosecuting anti-marijuana laws is a double-edged sword: While hundreds of millions of dollars are spent annually to arrest, prosecute, incarcerate and "rehabilitate" harmless marijuana users, the police, courts, prosecutors, jails and probation authorities cannot adequately handle the crimes of violence, coercion and deceit which are increasing daily.
It may well be true that the recreational use of cannabis is a vice, but we must always remember that a vice is not a criminal act. Smoking tobacco, drinking alcohol and overeating have also been described as vices--but this does not warrant the use of the criminal law against tobacconists, alcoholics or the overweight. In the words of John Stuart Mill, in his famous essay ON LIBERTY: "Human liberty requires liberty of tastes and pursuits; of framing the plan of our life to suit our own character; of doing as we like, subject to such consequences as may follow: without impediment from our fellow creatures, so long as what we do does not harm them, even though they should think our conduct foolish, perverse, or wrong.
"The only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others. His own good, either physical or moral, is not a sufficient warrant. He cannot rightfully be compelled to do or forbear because it will be better for him to do so, because it will make him happier, because, in the opinions of others, to do so would be wise or even right. These are good reasons for remonstrating him, but not for compelling him or visiting him with any evil in case he do otherwise."
Or, as Herbert Spencer, the famous nineteenth-century educator and philosopher, once said: "To protect men from their own folly, is to people the world with fools."
The issue here is freedom, human liberty, and the dignity of each of us to live our lives as we see fit. If a person is harmed by a substance---and the "harm" which marijuana is capable of causing is very much in debate---if a person is harmed by a substance that he or she chooses freely to consume, then at least that harm is a direct result and consequence of that person's choices and actions. To substitute the harm of the State for self-harm, is irredeemably and absurdly grotesque. What's more, once any measure of control over one's own body is surrendered to the government, a dangerous precedent is established that can lead to total control---that is, to totalitarianism.
As professor Ludwig von Mises, the noted economist, wrote in his magnum opus HUMAN ACTION: "Once the principle is admitted that it is the duty of the government to protect the individual against his own foolishness, no serious objections can be advanced against further encroachments. A good cause could be made out in favor of the prohibition of alcohol and nicotine. And why limit the government's benevolent providence to the protection of the individual's body only? Is not the harm a man can inflict on his mind and soul even more disastrous than any bodily evils? Why not prevent him from reading bad books, and seeing bad plays, from looking at bad paintings and statues and from hearing bad music? The mischief done by bad ideologies, surely, is more pernicious than that done by drugs.
"These fears are not imaginary spectres terrifying secluded doctrinaires. It is a fact that no paternal government, whether ancient or modern, ever shrank from regimenting its subjects' minds, beliefs and opinions. If one abolishes man's freedom to determine his own consumption, then one takes all freedoms away. The naive advocates of government interference with consumption delude themselves when they neglect what they disdainfully call the philosophical aspects of the problem. They unwittingly support the case of censorship, inquisition, religious intolerance, and the persecution of dissenters."
CARL M. "MARTY" SWINNEY
Libertarian Candidate
51st State Assembly District |
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| 2. |
Criminal Justice Reform |
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If you want men to respect your laws, you must first make your laws respectable .
---Henry David Thoreau
Crime may be one of the best things that ever happened to politicians. Consider the unhappy facts: Almost every voter has been victimized at one time or another; everyone is angry, or frightened, or possibly resigned to a deteriorating situation. In response to the public-opinion polls, the professional office-holders and office seekers are assuming predictable postures and repeating the phrases they think we all want to hear. Everybody is criticizing lenient judges, plea-bargaining prosecutors, and parole boards who usurp the intent of the law to punish and restrain felons. Most politicians pay lip service to the "WeTIP" and "Neighborhood Watch" programs, not even noting that these are local activities that have grown up outside of politics and of government.
I suggest to you that the function of a legislator is to legislate, not to deliver "pep talks" to a depressed electorate, so what this paper will concern itself with has a lot more to do with laws and new approaches of a political sort than it does with the ritualistic opposition to evil that we are hearing from the two "older" parties and their candidates. Some may disagree, but please remember that no elected official or aspirant to office can maintain his or her integrity if they mislead you or prey upon your fears in order to gain prestige as your elected representative. I would also like to remind you that government at all levels is very skillful at spending your money, but incapable of creating a Utopia.
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Crime is not going to disappear. This should be quite obvious, for mankind, throughout history, has tried everything from unspeakable brutality to blaming law-abiding victims for creating criminals---and nothing has ever worked quite as well as we would like.
Perhaps we have overlooked a significant fact: that "society" is not a "thing" or a being or a separately-existing entity. There is really no such "thing" as "society"; there are only individuals. What we call "society" is, in reality, nothing more than the aggregate of the separate, individual interactions of millions of individual human beings in a given geographical area. Society, as such, has no rights. Each individual person does. Crime is a violation of the rights of the individual.
These violations occur when a person's right to his body or to his rightfully-acquired property is denied him. Violence, theft, fraud and coercion are, therefore, crimes. Whenever individuals act voluntarily, without trespassing on the rights of others, no crime can exist.
Unfortunately, not everyone sees it this way. There are those who believe that their personal codes of morality require them to force their neighbors to behave similarly. So laws forbidding many forms of voluntary behavior are common. Politicians, quick to respond to popular demands that uniformity be imposed in the name of morality, denounce otherwise harmless people.
This, I submit, can only create victims.
Also unfortunate is the fact that this zealous persecution of scapegoats usually intensifies as things continue to go wrong. Rising crime rates have convinced many citizens that things are out of control. The natural response is to crack down harder. Paroles are rescinded, sentences lengthened, laws of evidence are changed and everyone comes to feel that more surveillance of law-abiding men and women is required. Some Constitutional rights are questioned, such as the perfectly obvious right of owning a firearm.
I therefore propose that we consider the consequences of repealing all pointless victimless "crime" laws (and they are all pointless) and of concentrating on nothing more than the defense of the rights of the individual.
The difficulties faced by our State and Federal criminal justice systems are defined and viewed differently by the various groups concerned with criminal activity. For the penal bureaucrat, funding for new facilities is a pressing concern; for the victim, justice and restitution may be the only important goal; and for the otherwise uninvolved citizen, crime prevention is vital. Still other views are obtained from parole officers, policemen and attorneys. There is no sector of the criminal justice system that is willing to admit to being satisfied with our nation's response to criminals. The most distressing aspect of this dissatisfaction is that it is always expressed in terms that place responsibility for perceived failures upon others. Police agencies, for example, cite budget cutbacks as hindering their enforcement capabilities; the assumption implicit in this complaint is that more money will somehow allow police to lower the crime rate. Prison wardens take a narrower view, simply pointing to overcrowding. Whether they see incarceration as some form of crime control is irrelevant: they are mandated to receive and to hold criminals, and this is made difficult by politicians or "uncooperative" taxpayers (who must, ultimately, foot the bill). Thus, each sector of the criminal justice system blames tight-fisted taxpayers or some other part of the system for the shortcomings of the whole.
Because of heightened public concern, each separate segment of the system is able to publicize its narrow functions and demands, implying that its individual performance is exemplary under virtually impossible circumstances. Our criminal justice system is actually at war with itself and with the public!
This scramble for attention and increased funding has several effects, none of them positive:
First, placing blame on others publicizes the shortcomings of the entire system and increases the feelings of frustration, danger and powerlessness felt by the individual taxpayer and citizen. It is in the nature of bureaus to provide conclusive evidence that their need for more money is legitimate, if not downright urgent. This is best acheived by what I call "the view to alarm". Competition for budget increases is conducted in the language of fear, exaggeration and defensive rationalizations. As an example of this, please refer to the billboards once erected around the city by the Los Angeles Police Department in their bid for a pay raise: it pictured a helpless woman about to be attacked or car-jacked---or robbed or raped or murdered. The viewer, presumably, was free to select his or her own particular "worst crime".
Second, hard feelings are inevitable. Judges must surely resent their characterization as being "soft on crime" and taxpayers often feel preyed upon by the system as a whole. Yet, if the overall perception of the criminal justice system as inefficient and unresponsive is ever to be erased, a spirit of rational planning and genuine cooperation will have to prevail.
Third, many so-called "solutions" are mere aggregates of the demands of the agencies within the criminal justice system. The politicians may take each demand at face value (a dubious procedure at best) and add up the total. This invariably means higher taxes. Few ever question the wisdom of rewarding a system that is woefully inadequate.
Fourth, increasingly harsh measures may be called for. With each segment of the system publicizing the failures of others, the frustration of the individual voter can boil over into demands for a stern approach. The lines between speedy justice and summary justice, between proper punishment and cruel punishment, between law enforcement and vigilantilism, may become blurred.
It seems clear that a continued dependence on the individual parts of the criminal justice system for suggestions in the improvement of the system as a whole is not likely to affect the crime rate significantly (if at all) or to produce anything but accelerating tax increases and further erosion and encroachments into our already-precarious Constitutional rights. Attempting to reduce the difficulties which crime causes by spending vast and ever-increasing quantities of money will surely serve the best interests of the agencies and professions involved, but how or whether the public might benefit is neither clear nor certain.
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It is sometimes suggested that the present philosophy of our criminal justice system is a kind of three-ring circus: First, the criminal is not given attractive alternatives to law-breaking and is not likely to be apprehended; second, punishment is often a post-graduate course in more sophisticated criminal techniques; and third, having failed to deter or to rehabilitate recidivists, the system brutalizes them. The proper approach is claimed to be through an understanding of sociological and psychological principles---a more or less "scientific" treatment designed to render criminality unnecessary and therefore obsolete.
Fundamental to this approach is the belief that economic and social conditions create criminality. By transferring funds from the private to the public sector, poverty is to be eliminated or at least drastically reduced. By applying sophisticated psychological techniques to individuals, values are to be changed. Whether this process is called "re-education" or "behavior modification" (or "brainwashing"), it is a frank attempt to alter, manipulate and control human thought and action. Thus, it is claimed that government can identify and "treat" those persons who, in spite of economic well-being, commit "anti-social" acts.
While this approach seems to skirt much of the present criminal justice system by trying to deal with the causes of crime, it must be recognized that the money to be spent by government to eliminate poverty, re-make society and force conformity on individuals would be simply an astronomical total. Thus the present problem---having to spend eternally-increasing sums on the dubious advice of bureaucracy---would not be solved. The present insatiable agencies would be augmented by a complex of even more costly bureaus.
An even more serious objection to this proposal for governmental manipulation of the economic, social and psychological aspects of our lives is the grave threat it poses to our liberty.
Throughout history, there has never been a shortage of self-proclaimed moral elites; now, it appears that somewhat more sophisticated tools are at their disposal. The precedents of high levels of taxation and the so-called "mental health" movement should convince even the overly trusting that government is willing to confiscate personal wealth to make possible the imposition of standards of behavior on law-abiding citizens. The systematic refusal to admit that "mental patients" have Constitutional rights, is an entrenched policy of our legal system which has not drawn enough criticism from so-called "civil libertarians"; it is largely unknown and consequently unquestioned. The use of drug and behavior modification "therapy" may be so violative of individual rights---because of their involuntary imposition and the dehumanizing assumptions upon which they rest---that it may not be proper even to speak of their "abuse", since that would imply an "appropriate" use for them.
Moreover, our democratic processes do not afford the individual sufficient protection from mind-manipulating authorities. The precedents for flagrant violations of our Constitutional rights are profoundly respected within the judiciary system; the "crazy person" is not deemed fit for writs of habeus corpus, for the right to a trial by jury, or for the right to control what substances are introduced into his or her body.
We must also reckon with the recent emergence of quasi-religious political zealots who are attacking voluntary sexual practices, freedom of expression and individual medical choice. Strictly speaking, there was nothing undemocratic or illegal about the Salem witch trials, nor could the victims of these heinous mixtures of religion and politics be said to have been denied their rights---as those rights were defined by the government of that day. A democracy can legally do whatever the majority wants with an unpopular minority. No court in this nation is ultimately immune to this simple principle.
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The search for solutions to the problems of crime and our criminal justice system is not properly guided either by advice from within that system or from those who wish to exercise control, whether mental or social, over us. The former is likely to be misleading and not innovative; the latter is simply dangerous. But something must be done.
Something MUST be done. We, as a nation, now hold the dubious "distinction" of imprisoning a greater percentage of our population than any other nation in the world, including South Africa, North Korea and Communist China. And yet, crime continues to rise.
To quote from an article in Reason magazine [October 1994, page 16], entitled "Lock 'em Up---War On Drugs Produces More Inmates, Not Less Crime": "We may never settle the question of whether or not there is a causal link between illegal drugs and other criminal activity. But even if such a link exists, locking up drug offenders doesn't appear to be the solution. Last year [1993] ended with a record 948,881 state and Federal prisoners, up from only 329,821 in 1980. Although nearly half of the increase is due to more drug offenders entering prison, new committments for property and violent crimes, as well as arrests for sexual assault, aggravated assault, and robbery, have continued to rise.
"Overcrowding is particularly acute in Federal prisons, where there are now more than twice as many drug offenders as there were total inmates in 1980 (emphasis added). The United States' incarceration rate for prisoners sentenced to more than a year also reached a world record 351 per 100,000 residents in 1993---and that's not counting the approximately 450,000 people held in city and county jails on any given day. That means that primarily because of drug prohibition, U.S. citizens are more likely to be locked up than any other people in the world."
And the costs continue to rise as well:
* Between $25,000 and $75,000 per inmate per year, depending on the level
of security;
* $21 BILLION per year for jail costs alone;
* $52 BILLION for Federal "Drug War" costs;
* Over 400,000 "Drug War" prisoners, most of whom have not been convicted
of any act of violence or theft.
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The principles of a proper improvement of our criminal justice system should be as follows:
1) The personal and property rights of the individual citizen must not be violated. As in medicine, the first principle is "Do No Harm";
2) The only person who may properly be deprived against his or her will of life, liberty or property, is that person who has himself violated the personal or property rights of another. Coercion is understood to be a violation of personal rights;
3) Victims of crimes are entitled to restitution, protection from retaliation and some say in the sentencing process;
4) Convicted criminals are not to be denied more rights than is appropriate for their sentences; and
5) All accused persons, regardless of their reputed mental state, are entitled to the same legal recourses.
* * * * *
There is little incentive for the legal and penal segments of the criminal justice system to respect the rights of the individual. Prostitution, for example, which is defined as a voluntary contract for the provision of sexual favors in return for a consideration, is not properly a crime, but rather a vice. But the prostitute-as-criminal is often as important to the police agencies and the courts as she is to her customers: She is involved in a revolving-door justice which amounts to legalization. Forfeited bail and fines are virtual license fees for the occupation! Police agencies can use the volume of arrests to bolster their claims that more officers are needed. Arresting and processing prostitutes, while certainly degrading for all concerned, is not as dangerous as apprehending violent criminals. Thus, police departments and local legal jurisdictions are unlikely to support the legalization of prostitution.
The taxpayer is also victimized by the criminal justice system which, under the current method of funding (i.e. taxation), confiscates his wealth by threatening to make him a criminal if he does not comply. This is a literal priceless opportunity for the criminal justice system. Any similarly unprincipled private concern would be ecstatic to have such insulation from competition and responsibility. It would be illogical to expect law enforcement, the courts or the prison system to welcome any changes in coercive funding.
But against this natural opposition some steps should be taken to cut costs to the taxpayer. Primary among these is the elimination of vices from the list of crimes, or what we Libertarians have been calling for lo these many years: the repeal of all victimless "crime" laws.
The second major step which should be taken to reduce costs is the gainful employment of prisoners. Typically opposed by labor unions and business-funded lobbies, such programs are stigmatized as "slave labor." It is assumed, but not proved, that competition from prisoner-manned industries is somehow "unfair." The fact that the prisoners would be employed, competitively, if they were not criminals, is overlooked. For all practical purposes, penal institutions function to withhold labor from the market, acting in response to pressure groups who are seeking simply to use the coercive power of the State to fortify their economic positions at the taxpayers' expense.
Convict industries are therefore mired in a morass of state regulation and prohibition, though the concept continues to get some attention from the authorities from time to time. The most useful approach would be to allow the convicts themselves to initiate the programs. Private industries should be expected to pay prevailing wage and piece rates if they contract with convicts. Earnings should be divided between restitution payments to the criminal's victims, costs of institutionalization and prosecution, convict privileges and a trust fund for the convict's release. And of course there ought to be a strict and independent accounting process to oversee the entire operation to insure safety, security and fiduciary responsibility, much of which could be made up of volunteers and unpaid appointees, thus not increasing prison budgets nor the tax burden.
Resistance from labor, business and the penal authorities doubtless would handicap progress, but these negative influences are based on narrow interests; they can be overcome by a continuing commitment to the concept of convict industries. This committment would not require as much faith or sacrifice as is presently involved in continuing rehabilitation programs, which do not provide substantial evidence that they can ever fully succeed.
This proposal for convict industries has firm roots in the current work furlough programs, and I feel that a genuine commitment would produce good results rather quickly---and that the long-term prospects are virtually incredible.
Ultimately, I would like to see our prison system pay for itself and thereby relieve our nation's taxpayers of a twenty-one BILLION dollar annual liability.
Today, the victim of a crime is victimized thrice: First, by the criminal who violates his individual rights to person or property; next, as an uncompensated witness who must take time off from work without pay to testify in the (unlikely) event that the criminal is apprehended and brought to trial. The final victimization occurs when the criminal is sent to prison: the victim, in his role as taxpayer, is forced---literally coerced---into paying more of his hard-earned money to maintain that criminal in jail; and, at a cost of between $25,000 and $75,000 per inmate-year, which is probably more than our hypothetical victim even makes after taxes! It is possible to protect the rights of the accused without ignoring those preyed upon by criminals. And, as for releases and sentencing, the victim or his family should always be consulted. In fact, many victims of crime only want back what is rightfully theirs, and have no real desire in seeing another human being locked up in prison for years. In any event, the victim should have a major say in the disposition of what is, after all, his case against the criminal. No crime is committed against "the People of the State of California" or against "the People of the United States of America"---only against individuals. We must end this legal fiction that you or I suffer as much from a robbery in a far part of the country as does the individual who is robbed.
In sum, I propose that the individual rights of everyone be respected. By cutting costs through reduction of the workload of police and prosecutors by abolishing laws against victimless "crimes", by instituting restitution and allowing inmates to be gainfully employed, and by giving victims a greater say in sentencing and parole, we can begin to reverse the corrosive frustration which so many people feel today about our society. There is reason for optimism: We Libertarians know that whenever respect for individual rights is the primary consideration of government, things cannot be getting worse.
CARL M. "MARTY" SWINNEY
Libertarian Candidate
51st State Assembly District |
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