How Many Innocent People Are in Jail on Drug Charges?
It's a question I've often pondered and one that anybody with strong opinions about drug policy should consider, regardless of where you stand on the issue. Surely, there exists no realistic formula with which to approximate an answer, but one need only observe and understand what the drug war is and how it works to know that grave injustices are forever embedded into the drug war equation.
The question resurfaced this week in an AP report that tells the story of Jose and Maximo Colon. The brothers were arrested and charged with cocaine distribution stemming from an alleged encounter with undercover officers in a sketchy NY bar. The case imploded when surveillance tape from the establishment revealed that the pair had simply not committed the crime or even interacted with the agents. They were arrested moments later by a back-up team, without a clue as to the reason why. Worse still, an outdoor camera captured footage of the undercover investigators "literally dancing down the street" afterwards, apparently pleased with their accomplishment.
It's a striking and gratuitous example of police misconduct to be sure, but the larger question is how many similar cases have led to convictions and prison time for their victims:
Jose quickly got the tape to defense attorney Rochelle Berliner, a former narcotics prosecutor. She couldn't believe what she was seeing.''I almost threw up,'' she said. ''Because I must've prosecuted 1,500, 2,000 drug cases ... and all felonies. And I think back, Oh my God, I believed everything everyone told me. Maybe a handful of times did something not sound right to me. I don't mean to sound overly dramatic but I was like, sick.''
If it were only possible somehow to reveal the full scope of wrongful, fraudulent convictions in the war on drugs, I don't doubt that the entire nation would be stunned and sickened. Yet, for anyone who's paying attention, it's not necessary to fantasize about the true extent of injustice and corruption that the drug war has unleashed on innocent people. You can read about it in the newspaper all the time.
In Ohio, we saw a DEA agent indicted for helping frame 17 innocent people. In Atlanta, we saw police plant drugs in the home of an innocent 88-year-old woman after shooting her to death. In Tulia, TX we saw a rogue narcotics officer frame and arrest most of the black people in town. In Hearne, TX we saw the same damn thing. And across the country, we've seen dozens of innocent people who might well have ended up in prison if they hadn't been killed first by the police who raided their homes.
Behind all of this lies a matrix of perverse incentives, loose evidentiary requirements, and diminished accountability mechanisms that make mind-blowing miscarriages of justice more than inevitable. A central element of modern drug enforcement involves the use of informants, who trade information on other people for leniency in their own criminal cases. They have every incentive to lie and they do so constantly, as we've seen over and over again. Prosecutors offer leniency in exchange for "substantial assistance" in helping convict others, a practice that inherently favors the guiltiest party. Inevitably, those most directly involved in a criminal conspiracy are armed with names and other critical details that prosecutors crave, while peripheral players and innocent bystanders who become entangled in drug investigations are placed at a remarkable disadvantage.
Of course, it shouldn't be necessary to persuade anyone that our drug laws are designed to make things easy for police and hard for criminal suspects. These vast drug war powers are bestowed on police and prosecutors by legislators who are eager to provide law-enforcement with every necessary tool in the fight against crime. That much power creates countless innocent casualties even at the hands of our most honest public servants, and it's a nightmare when passed along to corrupt cops like the men who framed the Colon brothers.
Yet, when these dramatic fiascoes get exposed, police can often be found downplaying it and insisting that you can't fight the drug war without these sorts of aggressive and dirty tactics. If that's even remotely true, then the war on drugs is just far too filthy and corrupt to tolerate in a free and civil society.
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redditIt’s All Too Easy
Comment posted by Giordano on Wed, 06/17/2009 - 4:26pmProhibition makes it far too easy for the unscrupulous to use the drug laws to pursue personal agendas that defy the government’s ostensible reasons for the drug statutes.
False drug arrests can be used to mask acts of racism and cultural discrimination. Prohibition can function as a façade for attacks on political dissidents. Drug laws can provide a back door for deeply embedded Taliban-esque extremists within government to pursue deconstructionist goals that erode our civil liberties. The list goes on.
In a truly free and open society, the risks and problems associated with drug enforcement are simply too great to ignore. No one can feel safe as long drug prohibition is the law of the land.
Giordano
Canadian Justice
Comment posted by sicntired on Sat, 06/20/2009 - 6:13amsicntired@mac.com,Vancouver,B.C.Canada has just taken one giant step backwards with the introduction of bill C-15.In spite of testimony from several witnesses from the U.S. explaining the horrors of mandatory minimum sentences,truly one of the drug wars most insideous contributions.The Harper government ,with collusion from the federal Liberal party,passed just such laws into existence.Coupled with the recent seizure laws this puts Canada,once so close to decriminalization it hurts,right up there with the U.S. as a hard line prohibitionist entity.They toughened up gun laws in a country where only the cops and criminals can get guns and now this.The courts are miles ahead of the government when it comes to lightening up on people for drug crimes.At a time when the RCMP look like a bunch of second rate thugs,the politicians just don't get it.So what elses new.Harper has done more for gangsters than anyone in 40 years.With even young people being shot down for dealing in the wrong area,Harper is concerned with putting people in prison for a few plants.The cops are far less vicious than they used to be.With so many seizures of some very expensive property,they seem content to go after the grow ops as they provide the most possibility of a big score.Meanwhile,the addicts of the down town east side wallow in filth with very little harassment from the police.There's little plunder and less glory in busting a sick addict.
This series is 3 years old, how did we miss it?
Comment posted by Moonrider on Sun, 06/21/2009 - 3:14amhttp://www.narconews.com/Issue40/article1644.html
Narco News: Dillon, Read & Co. Inc. and the Aristocracy of Prison Profits: Part I
Inside the Financial World, Government Agencies and their Private Contractors Lies a Hidden System of Money Laundering, Drug Trafficking and Rigged Stock Market Riches
I'm pro-choice on EVERYTHING!
Corrupt cops in small town
Comment posted by shannonandlyle on Sun, 06/21/2009 - 11:20amWe live in a small town in upstate ny. my husband was in the wrong place at the time of a drug raid and the owner of the house was persuaded by police to write a statement against my husband that the drugs was his. Well in the end he retracted his statement saying that he was cohersed by the police and that he was lying. Ever since then the police have been after by husband. Well they finally set him up and an undercover trooper got on the stand and accused my husband of selling drugs to her. She descibed him on her buy sheets as a black male with hair and 5'7. Well that was only one description the other three was 6'2 wit glasses and 6 foot with hair and a baseball cap. Well needless to say my husband is a bald man for 6 years he cant even grow hair and he is 5'10. They had no evidence not any buy money, no wires no phone convos just their word and they succeeded to convict my husband and used pictures of him for the jury of my husband walking out of subway with subs and soda to convince the jury they were watching him and that he sold drugs. They forged documents and the police admitted that at trial not to mention they had no idea who one of the persons who signed a narcotics evidence report. They said they dont know who that is no clue. So all the paperwork was made up. Just a coincidence about that time on may 1st they had a drug raid and recovered alot of people and drugs my husband wasnt involved at all. But low and behold they come up with lies and drugs that supposedly my husband sold to them but they had no proof at all a week and a half later. How can they even allow my husband just because of his race to be convicted of something he didnt do. The police officer even said we have one black man now lets get the rest. not to mention the undercover trooper who testified at four trial that she was sold drugs commited suicide after the trials. We as people can only withstand so many lies. The crooked police in this county are terrible and something needs to be done. Thats something else a life was lost all to convict black men and innocent people for the police to feel like they are doing something and make them look good.
The media pays little attention to incarceration rates.
Comment posted by William Aiken on Wed, 06/17/2009 - 8:17amWilliam Aiken
The individual stories of law enforcement nabbing totally innocent people on drug charges get more attention than the larger issue of America as the leading the world in incarceration rates. The media prefers these individual stories because they have a face and tell more personal stories as opposed to troubling Governement statistics or studies from the Sentencing Project.
It's really annoying to hear conservatives such as Sean Hannity boast 24/7 what a "free" country we live in or Bill O'Reilly exclaiming what a noble country America is, while they fully support the drug war which is the biggest obstical to individual freedom and the pursuit of happiness. How did we as country get to the point where owning the crown as the world's leading jailer isn't a big story? There are many factors and special interests profiting from the status quo.
Unfortunately, it is unlikely that change in our drug policy will derive from moral reasons. Most the changes in attitude can be attributed to the bottom line. The main insentive behind Cailfornia's legislation to legalize Marijuana is a financial one.
Most politicians that have the guts to advocate drug reform would rather avoid a culture war and instead focus on the wastefulness in lost tax revenue, police and prison costs.
In the meantime, the proponents of legalization need to call out the hypocrites when they play the "America the Free" card. Those guilty of this hypocracy who are fortunate to have their own TV venues, have blogs and E-mails to counter their misguided rhetoric. It's up to us to use the freedom of speech to put these "Patriotic" claims by Hannity, O'Reilly and Glen Beck into perspective or anyone else in media who engages in them.