About Time For Less Time

Catching up from the weekend . . .. This past Sunday's Washington Post had an article about the US Sentencing Commission beginning to seriously consider alternatives to incarceration, particularly in drug cases.

The particular alternative under consideration is a series of "drug courts" for nonviolent offenders:

The courts operate under similar principles: At sentencing, a judge gives a nonviolent offender the option of going to prison or committing to a rigorous treatment program, where he or she submits to frequent tests and supervision. The aim is to reduce the 67 percent recidivism rate of addicted offenders.

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'Drug courts are the most successful strategy in terms of reducing crime, but they're tremendously underutilized,' [C. West Huddleston, chief executive of the National Association of Drug Court Professionals] said. 'I think a Sentencing Commission recommendation to U.S. courts would create momentum. It'll wake up state legislatures. It's a conversation that should have been had years ago.'

It would be nice to think that the new attention paid to alternatives is because folks have finally figured out that the "drug war" is a big fat failure. Not quite:

'We are leading the world in incarcerating adults, and that's something Americans need to understand,' said Beryl Howell, one of six members of the commission, which drafts federal sentencing guidelines and advises the House and Senate on prison policy. 'People should be aware that every tough-on-crime act comes with a price. The average cost [of incarceration] across the country is $24,000 a year per inmate. . . . It's going up far faster than state budgets can keep up.'

About 2,000 drug courts nationwide spend between $1,500 and $11,000 per offender, according to the National Drug Court Institute.

It's all about the bucks. If that's what it takes to fix a broken system, so be it.