Study Assails Mandatory Drug Crime Sentences

WASHINGTON — Mandatory long-term prison sentences for lower-level drug users and dealers are not effective and should be scrapped in favor of a system that gives judges discretion to order offenders to serve shorter terms and undergo treatment, the Rand Corp. said Monday in a study of narcotics law enforcement.

Despite the decade-long popularity in Congress of mandatory minimum prison terms for drug offenses, the indiscriminate use of such sentences is “the least cost-effective means of reducing drug consumption in this country,” the study concluded.

Citing the high cost of lengthy prison terms, the Rand report attacked federal guidelines that require judges to impose a sentence of at least five years for anyone convicted of possessing half a kilogram of cocaine powder or 5 grams of crack cocaine.

Incarceration has little effect on the flow of drugs because “most incarcerated drug dealers can be easily replaced on the street,” Jonathan Caulkins, principal author of the report, told reporters.

Caulkins, associate professor of public policy at Carnegie Mellon University, said that more conventional sentences for low-level cocaine dealers and users, combined with prison drug treatment programs, give taxpayers “more bang for their buck.”

The Santa Monica-based research organization said that mandatory minimums become the most cost-effective method only for the highest level of drug dealers: those who reap the highest profits and hire others to handle the drugs, and are the most expensive to convict. Present laws “foreclose discretionary judgment where it is most needed and often result in unjust punishment or even racial bias,” the report said.

Last month the U.S. Sentencing Commission, endorsing a move long sought by African American leaders, recommended to Congress that penalties for dealing crack cocaine be brought more in line with those for powder cocaine. Under current laws, the punishment for possession of five grams of crack is the same as for 500 grams of powder cocaine.

Black leaders have protested that heavy penalties for tiny amounts of crack strike black offenders unfairly.

The Rand report, however, did not dwell on racial disparity. It argued that, “if cutting drug consumption and drug-related crime are the nation’s prime drug control objectives, then the mandatory minimum drug sentencing laws . . . are not the way to get there.”

Gen. Barry McCaffrey, the White House drug policy control coordinator, said he agrees with the basic thrust of the Rand study.

“Swiftness and surety of sentencing, not just the length, are key to assuring the right deterrent message,” McCaffrey said. “We cannot simply arrest our way out of the drug problem. Law enforcement must be linked with drug treatment.”

Rep. Bill McCollum (R--Fla.), chairman of the House Judiciary subcommittee on crime, said: “I think the Rand study misses the point. The principal value of mandatory minimum sentences is the certainty of punishment and the deterrent message that that sends. I have no problem with drug treatment programs.”