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PROP 5: OPTIONS TO JAIL TIME

Treatment of drug offenders in the criminal justice system has always been self-contradictory. The law stipulates punishment. The offender needs treatment.

Without treatment, the offender commits crimes again and escalates the cycle. Incarceration, however, is often the only way to keep the offender from succumbing to the temptations of substance abuse and committing more crime.

Meanwhile, some agencies estimate that as many as 70 percent of the nation's prisoners need drug treatment.

Proposition 5 is a measure to offer drug treatment as an alternative to incarceration. The object is mostly to relieve California of some of the expense for keeping 171,000 prisoners behind bars, which comes to more than $10 billion a year.

Supporters say it would cost the state $1 billion a year to offer rehabilitation treatment programs to drug offense prisoners. Only "nonviolent" offenders would be eligible, and the state would save about $1 billion used to keep them locked up. It costs the state $46,000 per inmate per year to incarcerate a prisoner, and the population is growing.

Proposition 5 would create a three-track drug treatment diversion program. It's complicated, but basically first-time offenders would serve no jail time or probation if they completed a treatment program. Second offenders could avoid prison as long as their offense was more than five years ago and they agreed to supervised probation for a year. Other offenders could be sentenced to rehabilitation by a judge's discretion only. Proposition 5 would also ease penalties for some parole violations and would offer offenders credit against their sentences for drug treatment programs completed.

Decriminalizes marijuana

The proposition would also make possession of one ounce or less of marijuana an infraction punishable by a fine of up to $100. Minors would not be fined for a first offense, but would be required to complete a drug education program. Proposition 5 essentially decriminalizes possession of marijuana for personal use, with no jail time and no criminal record.

Opponents of Proposition 5 are critical of the reduction of criminal penalties for a wide range of crimes -- burglary, auto theft, insurance fraud, identity theft -- if they are related to drug abuse. Proposition 5 reduces sentences of methampheamine dealers, for instance, from three years to six months. Opponents of Proposition 5 also warn that it will simply shift the burden of punishing offenders from the state to the local level.

The local angle

Local criminal justice leaders Sheriff Bill Wittman, District Attorney Phil Cline and Judge Glade Roper all say Proposition 5 would expose the public to more criminals and burden the county with the cost of incarcerating and treating them. They recommend a no vote on 5.

URL: https://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v08/n964/a03.html



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The proposition would also make possession of one ounce or less of marijuana an infraction punishable by a fine of up to $100.

Thats cheaper than a speeding ticket!