New JPI Report on Drug Treatment and Incarceration in Maryland
JPI is please to announce the release of our latest policy report, "Progress and challenges: An analysis of drug treatment and imprisonment in Maryland from 2000-2005." The report, authored by Kevin Pranis, shows that while many Maryland jurisdictions are making progress towards the goal of providing "treatment, not incarceration" for nonviolent substance abusers, the state's investments in treatment have not kept pace with demand, and the state spends far more to imprison people convicted of drug offenses than it spends to treat drug involved people through the criminal justice system. The report was covered in The Washington Post, The Associated Press, The Baltimore Sun, The Carol County Times, The Maryland Daily Record, and other papers and electronic media across the state, and in Washington, DC.
This new report, and five monographs we have written about state sentencing policy, along with recent news articles on Maryland sentencing and systems reform are featured on a new Maryland page of our website, which can be found at http://www.justicepolicy.org/projects/maryland/maryland.htm. Check back with us periodically, as JPI begins to build our website as a clearinghouse on Maryland drug sentencing and system reforms issues throughout the coming year.
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Comment posted by Anonymous on Fri, 11/21/2008 - 2:09amThe war around the War on Drugs is a battle between public health and criminal justice. It’s a battle between conservatives calling for imprisonment and progressives calling for public health solutions. It’s the legacy of Barry Goldwater, Richard Nixon, Nelson Rockefeller, and others, who used the fear of crime to build campaigns around law and order. While these conservative politicians were pounding the bully pulpit and demanding that every drug offender is punished, Congress was eliminating mandatory minimum sentences and mainstream public opinion considered drug addiction to be a public health problem, not an issue for the criminal courts.
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jillcatrina
This is really interesting,
Comment posted by Anonymous on Mon, 07/09/2007 - 1:16pmThis is really interesting, but i am not surprised at all. It looks like priorities are different for different sides. I guess we will get nowhere whit such divergences and we should start searching for common ideas and attitudes. The only people suffering here are those in drug rehab programs and we should think more about that.