Netherlands is closing 19 prisons due to a serious prisoner shortage; we could do the same if we ended the War on Drugs
A decline in crime in the Netherlands left so many prison cells empty that in 2009, the Dutch justice ministry announced that it would close eight prisons and cut 1,200 jobs in the prison system. Last week, the Dutch government announced revised plans to close 19 prisons, according to a Dutch TV station.
Perhaps that could happen in the United States if we ended our various failed and senseless wars… the War on Drugs, the War on Plants, the War on Weeds, etc. After all, we are the world’s No. 1 jailer and incarcerate more Americans per 100,000 population than any country in the world, by far, especially among the advanced economies. Considering that almost half (47.1%) of all federal prisoners are serving time for drug offenses, we could easily close dozens of the more than 200 federal prison facilities if drugs were de-criminalized.
We can close some prisons if we spend more on education (just to combat the active pro-legalization propaganda) and rehabilitation.
The Netherlands did not have to do that. They closed prisons because victimless crimes were stricken from the books.
Driving 70 MPH on the sidewalk in a school zone with lots of children around can be a victimless crime too.
As someone here said before, people shouldn’t be thrown in jail for what they might do, right?
What about tax evasion or selling a nuclear weapon?
Driving 70 MPH on the sidewalk in a school zone with lots of children around can be a victimless crime too.
Only if the owners of the sidewalk allow vehicles to drive at 70 MPH on the sidewalk. And as soon as someone is harmed there is no victimless crime. When you smoke pot you do not harm anyone but yourself. Since you own your own body it is up to you to decide what you put into it. A third party has a say only if you harm someone else by using force against them or their property. This means that if you smoke pot it isn’t a crime. But if you choose to drive impaired and hit my car you are committing a crime. We do not need any new laws to deal with the second example and while the first may be a sin, it certainly is not a crime that has any victims.
As someone here said before, people shouldn’t be thrown in jail for what they might do, right</b.
Correct.
What about tax evasion or selling a nuclear weapon?
The tax issue is too complex to go over in detail here. I believe that taxes are theft and see no reason why people should be robbed by government so that it can use the revenues to buy votes from those that consume taxes. The nuclear weapon issue is an interesting one because nuclear weapons are prohibited under libertarian logic. A rifle can be used for defensive purposes because you can target the attacking bad guys directly. You cannot do that with nukes because they target areas where civilians live. As such having nukes is criminal and most government employees who deal with them should be in jail.
So, if you own your house, in a housing tract, you can burn it down as long as there are no victims.
As long as you own the nuclear weapon and don’t harm anyone, why can’t you be allowed to buy them?
So, if you own your house, in a housing tract, you can burn it down as long as there are no victims.
No, you can’t because you will ruin the views for neighbours and will lower the value of their homes. It is the same thing as deciding to let garbage pile up on your front lawn.
As long as you own the nuclear weapon and don’t harm anyone, why can’t you be allowed to buy them?
No. Nukes are not permitted because they kill indiscriminately and cannot be used for defence against aggressors only. Nobody should be able to own nukes, including governments.
Anyone who believes that smoking marijuana is tantamount to holding nuclear weapons needs no cannabinoids to transport him to Haight land.
Anyone who believes that smoking marijuana is tantamount to holding nuclear weapons needs no cannabinoids to transport him to Haight land.
Some people get a bit irrational when it comes the the criminalization of what they consider sins. Their authoritarianism comes through loud and clear.
Vangel says: “No, you can’t because you will ruin the views for neighbours and will lower the value of their homes. It is the same thing as deciding to let garbage pile up on your front lawn.”
Exactly.
Nicolas says: “Anyone who believes that smoking marijuana is tantamount to holding nuclear weapons needs no cannabinoids to transport him to Haight land.”
So, what’s your point? Should we throw people in jail for what they might do, including owning nuclear weapons?
I think a better analogy would be if some people were driving down sidewalks at 70mph and the government decided the true problem wasn’t the manner in which they were driving, but just fact that they were driving (after all, if you are allowed to drive a car then you could use it to drive down the sidewalk; did you ever meet anyone that drove down a sidewalk that didn’t start with regular driving first??).
Then the government started arresting all the easy targets: People safely driving in the street, auto dealers and manufacturers. Regular drivers were targeted in hopes of sending a strong message to the driving abusers (sidewalk drivers).
Then we could add up the costs of jailing these regular drivers, calculate their lost wages due to incarceration and show how costly regular driving is to society.
And to make it even more like the war on drugs… we would later find out that the rate of driving down sidewalks didn’t significantly change. And then we knew we had to crack down harder on regular drivers.
There, fixed your analogy for you.
Dr. Perry, don’t leave out all the other costs we could save. If we can close down dozens of prison should drugs be decriminalized we could also scale back every part of the criminal justice system. Law enforcement, the court system, the parole/probation system just to name the obvious areas.
The savings could be very significant.
Eight-wingers are usually better on economics, and thus correct when they ascribe economic motives to explaining human behavior.
So who is really for the War on Drugs?
Police bloating their budgets? Drug lawyers who get a lot of business defending druggies? Prison guards unions? Liquor distributors? The DEA that wants a bigger budget?
Surely, one cannot deny there is are financial stakes in maintaining this war on drugs. So who has the stakes?
That reminds me of the quote by Upton Sinclair:
“It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it!”
A lot of the costs savings that would come from ending the War on Drugs would come out of the pockets of law enforcement and criminal justice employees.
In the US we can’t end the war on drugs, all those people have to sit in jail because otherwise the already high unemployment rate would be too much higher.
But if we could reduce the stress on the criminal justice system, maybe it could then provide fair trials instead of intimidating the accused into a plea bargain by charging them for more and worse crimes than they deserve to be charged with.
who is to say that if we ramp down the war on drugs that the industry won’t then flourish and provide MORE jobs and REDUCE our unemployment?
Of course, then we’d have the paradox of people not spending their money more wisely than the govt would, eh?
This is such an incomplete and misleading article. Professor, Dr. Mark J. Perry, doesn’t give any cause for the recent reduction in prisoners. It would be interesting to know of changes in Dutch government, laws, policies, social attitudes, etc. It’s certainly not because of reformed drug laws, since the Netherlands has had liberal drug laws all along. He loosely implies this by saying the US should reform their drug laws – a very disappointing article by a man who has an agenda rather than good reporting skills.
This is such an incomplete and misleading article. Professor, Dr. Mark J. Perry, doesn’t give any cause for the recent reduction in prisoners. It would be interesting to know of changes in Dutch government, laws, policies, social attitudes, etc. It’s certainly not because of reformed drug laws, since the Netherlands has had liberal drug laws all along. He loosely implies this by saying the US should reform their drug laws – a very disappointing article by a man who has an agenda rather than good reporting skills.
I think that you missed it. Get rid of laws that put people in jail for victimless crimes (drug laws) and the jails empty out. The thieves, rapists, and murderers still go to jail because such acts are still against the laws. But if you smoke pot you don’t go to jail because it is your body and you have every right to use and misuse it as you wish. If we are intelligent enough not to criminalize vices we will be much freer, healthier, and richer.
Dr. Perry does not say that the reduction in Dutch prisoners is because of releasing those in jail for victimless crimes. He doesn’t give any reason at all. Others are projecting that we should do that, but what’s going on in The Netherlands? We don’t know. It is a poor report that doesn’t even attempt to give the cause of why an event is happening. Maybe the Dutch are doing something even more intelligent and effective from whch we could learn if Dr. Perry had done his homework and reported that to us.
It’s very easy to take a metric a skewer reality. Statistically there are multiple animals which qualify as the fastest animal on earth, depending on distance and method of locomotion.
Drug use in and of itself is not a victimless crime. You are victimizing yourself. The question is how best to handle that?
There is a similar story from sweden in which they are closing prisons because of lack of inmates. The crime rate did not change overall, and in some metrics even went up.
Part of the problem is the crime round-about of narcotics. Being that they are mostly illegal to own, purchase, or sell your options for getting them ultimately lead you to unsavory characters. Maybe the guy you know, maybe the guy who supplies that guy.
Regardless, a good percentage of that money goes to some really bad people. Ones that you and I don’t want to know.
Narcotics tend to be a release from reality for folks who are stressed out and don’t have other outlets to deal with that stress. The problem is, like alcohol, they impair judgement, or worse, cook your brain with chemical overload. The problem is exacerbated by the ‘half life’ of the narcotics, which is to say how long it takes to run it’s course through your system until you get back to your base line, and that half life often being a good bit longer than for alcohol which is our legal stress release medium.
Drug use becomes a victim filled crime when a person develops an addiction.
Decriminalization I think is a partial step in the right direction. The world is infinite shades of grey however, and justice systems tend to be one trick ponies that only dispense a singular brand of justice rather than creatively fit the punishment to the crime. More creativity is certainly needed to address the issue of drug abuse, what that creative solution would or should be is something that still eludes society at large.
If America instituted a proper healthcare system, I bet people wouldn’t go broke from basic medical issues and try to rob banks, etc.
People do not usually go broke from basic medical issues. The might go broke if they have a chronic problem that is difficult to treat but Americans do not the type of market choices that would make dealing with such issues easier. The simple fact is that the US has a highly regulated health care system that makes care expensive and makes it impossible to get the type of cheap insurance that would prevent the type of catastrophic issues that you seem to worry about.
The simple fact is that most of the improvements in our health have come about because of an improvement in our lifestyle, diet, and access to vaccines. The activities that consume most of the money that goes into health care add very little to our overall life expectancy or help us to live better. While we can spend a great deal to keep us in pain for the last few years of our lives most of the things that matter are very cheap. The trouble is that the regulations get in the way and the government does not allow consumers and producers to come to proper understanding about the delivery of good but affordable health care.