Five Ways the Drug War Hurts Kids

This Reason.tv interview with LEAP Executive Director Neill Franklin makes a number of strong points:

I'm particularly interested in Neill's argument regarding the dramatic drop in clearance rates for homicides over the past few decades. Of course, it would be difficult to prove empirically that increased drug prosecutions make it harder to solve murders. Still, it's certainly an unflattering portrait of modern law enforcement priorities that we get better and better at arresting people for petty marijuana possession, while more and more people are literally getting away with murder.

It makes less sense the more you think about it. Forensic science has advanced by leaps and bounds since the 1960's. We have fancy cameras and computers and a million other nifty gadgets at our disposal to help us piece together events and get to the bottom of the story when a terrible crime is committed. Technology for solving murders has advanced far more than the typical means of committing them. So why are police solving fewer murders? I can't say for sure, but my first guess would be the same factor that's driven up our murder rates in the first place: the war on drugs.

But don't take it from me. Neill Franklin was in law enforcement for over 30 years. He witnessed first-hand the seismic shift in police priorities that occurred during the vast drug war expansion. No one is more qualified to address these questions, and everyone who hates murder should be interested in what he has to say.