The last
seven Presidential Administrations have declared and fought a
war on drugs. The
1984 Crime Control Act raised everything from minimum mandatory
sentences to prosecutors salaries, yet in the 19 years hence,
both crime and drug dealing have multiplied. The tactics used to
fight this “war on drugs” have again, failed as miserably as the
tactics used in that other well-intentioned war in
Vietnam. The only accomplishment
has been an ever increasing number of “prisoners of war.” (These are both in
prisons and in their homes stripped of their
liberty.)
To return
briefly to my opening paragraph, the respect for law and order
has not increased by those in danger of falling into crime but
rather become a mockery.
A new tact must be found in our system of crime and
corrections or soon we shall have a large class of people with
no respect for law and order, an increasing turn to a drug
lifestyle, and an ever increasing number of these “prisoners of
war” for usually minor, drug related, and non-violent
crimes. We are not
fiscally prepared to accommodate these numbers and we have now
reached a point of using funds that could be used in pre-emptive
programs to bring respect of the law and education in life that
would reduce future crime (especially drugs), as well as our
already basic education programs and health care to fund prisons
that are no more than bulging warehouses where men are serving
longer and longer sentences (while no deterrent can be seen in
this from the current crime rate statistics) at an ever
increasing cost.
To
complicate matters further we must look into what is being lost
for this no-gain, failed policy. Discounting the loss of
what could have been our “best and brightest” in many instances
to drugs and disrespect and misunderstanding of both the law and
society, we are sacrificing much more:
2
For over
two centuries (prior to the slip down the slippery slide we have
engaged) we were a great nation separated from most every other
country on earth by our freedoms, liberties and protections our
forefathers gained and guaranteed to “us and our posterity” by
the very foundation, the backbone of that freedom, that liberty
we deem (and indeed, most of the world) so precious, our
constitution; a document,
more than that, a way of life our predecessors from 1775
until today have valued with their very lives, a way of life so
many have, to quote Lincoln, “Given that last full measure of
devotion.”
Now, in
an effort to rid our citizens of crime we are surrendering those
very freedoms that have made us unique, that have made us a
great and envied nation.
But who will protect us from our protectors? When we cease
surrendering liberty for a failed order of crime and
corrections?
These
most precious rights are like sin. One is no more precious
than another. Over
fifty years ago, with an eye to the future, Justice Jackson, in
his dissent of the Supreme Courts decision in Brinegar v.
U.S.
stated:
“Fourth
amendment are not mere second-class rights but belong in the
catalog of indispensable freedoms. Among deprivation of
rights, none is so effective in cowing a population, crushing
the spirit of the individual and putting terror in every
heart. Uncontrolled
search and seizure is one of the first and most effective
weapons in the arsenal of every arbitrary government…But the
right to be secure against searches and seizures is one of the
most difficult to protect.
Since the officers themselves are the chief invaders,
there is no enforcement outside the
court.”
Such
encroachment on our liberties also garners disrespect for
otherwise good ideals and law enforcement. Such encroachment on
these liberties, these freedoms, no matter how well your
intentions, is still a surrender of all that we are. And, as stated herein,
that surrender has gained nothing in
return.
3
Seventy-five
years ago Justice Brandies wrote:
“It is immaterial that
the intrusion was in aid of law enforcement. Experience should teach
us to be much on our guard to protect liberty when the
government’s purposes are beneficent. Men born to freedom are
naturally alert to repel invasion of their liberty by evil
minded rulers.* The
greatest dangers to our liberty lurk in insidious encroachment
by men of zeal, well meaning but without
understanding.”**
* Re: Our rallying
following 9-11 against Sadam Hussien.
** The
tract we see by government against it’s citizens
today,
(Patriot Act
etc.)
To be sure no one
questions the need for law and authority: Even
Jefferson, the most eloquent of spokesmen for liberty
said,
“Justice
is the insurance we have on our lives and our freedoms and our
property. Obedience
to the law is the premium we pay for that
insurance.”
The
upholding and adhering to law is the basis of civilized society,
and certainly no one can disclaim that there is an increase in
crime, a great amount coming since the widespread use of drugs
since the mid-60’s.
Certainly no one can fault our citizenry’s call for some
way to stop this progression of crime and danger to ourselves
and our property.
But it
must be equally, and painfully clear that this major rise in
crime and the crime rate coincides with the rise in lengths of
sentences and erosion of our liberties as we fight this ill
planned, ill perceived war on crime. The ever expanding drug
use in this country comes in that same era that seven presidents
have declared war on drugs. Crime and the use of
drugs increase while our Congress and State Legislators march
lock-step in attempting, not to see the real cause and effect,
not to address the real problems, not to find real solutions,
not to admitting when programs fail, but rather, to position
themselves to a frightened public to not be “soft-on-crime,”
indeed, to be “tougher-on-crime” than the next
person.
4
The way
of the past nearly 40 years has failed in every way
imaginable. We must
see the obvious. As
with an over extended household budget (where we generally
continue to overspend to keep up pretenses), or an over-extended
state or national budget (where we generally have tried and
failed to spend our way to solvency and tax ourselves into
prosperity), social problems such as herein discussed do not
have simple, easy answers (such as “lock-em-up and throw away
the key”). Problems
are static and are never solved. Civilization is a
sequence of new tasks, of new problems crying out to be faced
with difficult and new solutions.
There is
an hysteria running rampant in our nation’s capitol and our
statehouses. There
has been extreme reduction by statutes and court rulings of
citizen’s rights in an effort to combat the dreaded plagues of
drugs and crime. To
rant about drugs and being “tough on crime” is certainly
simpler, and much more popular, than the difficult tasks of
balancing budgets (although the two without a doubt have become
inter-related). But
escalating the punishments for drug offenders and related
non-violent, non-“true criminal type” offenders, bankrupting our
state and national coffers by simply warehousing these people
will hardly cure our social ills. It is creating more
poverty and more loss of hope. And poverty and loss of
hope is a greater root cause of crime than drugs could ever
be. Indeed, poverty
and loss of hope is a major root cause of drug use itself. So, you see the programs
we have followed cannot be seen in true light as a solution, but
a further increase of the problems we claim to have declared war
on.
A popular
book twenty years ago, “The Fatal Shore,” depicted a period in
English history when over 200 property crimes carried the death
penalty, yet they could not kill people fast enough. Prison overcrowding had
become such a problem that “private” prisons were created to
deal with the overflow (sound familiar?). Ultimately they took
160,000 of the inmates to “prison ships” and banished them to an
island in the South Pacific. We do not have an
“Australia,”
and unless we intend to simply fence in Oklahoma,
we are not going to be able to build prisons fast enough (even
if we could afford such a solution without increasing the
problem).
5
I do
suppose such a solution of prison building has been tried in our
not out of memory history.
It was called Auschwitz, Buchenwald, Dachau and
others. This seems
a good spot, with the previous analogy, to again think of the
consequences of liberty lost in our failed war. If a Fourth Amendment had
existed in Amsterdam under Nazi control we
would not have “The Diary
of Anne Frank,” we would have Anne
Frank!
The Third
Reich did not impose it’s will upon an unwilling, unreceptive
public. Hitler rose
to power on a ground swell of public opinion, fueled by
law-and-order rhetoric and scare tactics, not unlike those that
have been unleashed on a frightened public by our politicians
and legislatures of late.
Ironically, many of those involved in the ground swell of
calling for a “war-on-crime” and “law-and-order” were casualties
themselves of that war: were victims to Auschwitz Buchenwald
etc. . .because they gave up their rights, their liberties, in
exchange for law and order. They chose the rhetoric,
the easy simple solutions.
“He who would give up a little
liberty,
For a little safety,
Deserves neither.”
Benjamin Franklyn
Santayana
wrote so prophetically, “those who fail to learn the lessons of
history are doomed to repeat it.”
In the
elections of 1860 Abraham Lincoln said this nation could not
long exist half slave and half free. In the election of 1960
John F. Kennedy said the world could not long exist half slave
and half free.
Since that time we have created a nation half in
happiness, half in misery: hope but fear for the one,
disappearing hope and disrespect for the law for the
other.
Justice
Brandeis, in his dissent in Olmstead v. United
States circa 1927, well
foretold of the problems that have manifested today, since the
war on crime was declared:
6
“Our
government is the potent, the omnipresent teacher. For good or for ill, it
teaches the whole people by its example. Crime is
contagious. If the
government becomes a lawbreaker, it breeds contempt for the law;
it invites every man to become a law unto himself; it invites
anarchy. To declare
that in the administration of the criminal law the end justify
the means – to declare that the government may commit crimes to
secure convictions … – would bring retribution. Against that pernicious
doctrine this Court should resolutely set its face.”
We face a
mushrooming rise in our crime rate that has led to a mushrooming
rise in incarceration that has led to an over-abundant amount of
police and police agencies and both State and Federal funds to
finance prisons that has led to a decrease in pre-emptive social
programs that would lead (potentially) to a decrease in the
crime rate, and while the use of drugs and the crime rate soars
(due to continued adherence to failed policies) we have a
citizenry calling for the government (both State and Federal) to
get “tough-on-crime,” to protect both themselves and their
property from perpetrators of crime. For over 30 years we
have, as a government, answered with the same old easy answer,
and proven failure of longer sentencing, lessening of citizens
rights, and failure to put funding where it could work to
reverse this trend; that is, in programs of hope within and
outside of the penitentiaries. The lack of these
programs, and the lack of incentives, and the loss of hope
because of mandatory sentencing guidelines (especially the
so-called habitual-offender/career criminal acts such as
Oklahoma’s) within the various
states and Department of Corrections have caused a rise in
recidivism. Indeed
it could be said that if true solutions and programs were sought
we would have little need for habitual criminal acts for
recidivism would be cut drastically.
Lack of
hope, lack of programs of a true nature and the seeing of
government (police) agencies breaking the law (constitutional
civil rights and liberties) have caused lack of respect for the
law and added to drug use; those dealing. We have created a nation
half happy, half without hope.
7
We have, in our search
for an answer to crime and drug abuse, become like a dog chasing
its own tail; the more we try what we’re doing the more illusive
our goal becomes.
Or we could say it is like an eddy in a stream; we are
caught up in an unwinable idea we refuse to let go of and will
soon be, as a society as a whole, pulled down by our refusal to
let go of proven failed policies.
President
Kennedy said, before our fall, “Ask not what your country can do
for you, ask what you can do for your country.” A generation heard this
call and responded.
Hope was still alive, and where there is hope there is no
need for dope. Our
current policy of crime and ‘corrections’ has stolen hope (by
stealing funds for programs and education) and our current law
enforcement tactics have caused disrespect for the
law.
We have,
to this point, addressed the problems, the failures, and what is
being done that is wrong.
Now we switch to solutions; solutions we must find before
we deluge ourselves in the eddy of our
failure.
To begin
I would first turn to an old adage: “An ounce of prevention
beats a pound of cure.” And a Biblical verse: “Seek the truth
and the truth shall set you free.”
To
address the first it must be seen that our finances (both State
and Federal) to address social ills, including crime and drug
abuse, are finite.
That is, there’s only so much pie. Where we send those
funds is the question – on prevention, on preemptive social
programs to educate and give hope – or on prisons to hide the
problem (at the continued increasing costs), prisons that have
no more than warehouses which have proven, even with longer
sentences, to be no deterrent to crime to those outside of
prison and, judging from the recidivism rate, no deterrent or
help to those inside our prisons. It is easy to see the
cause of the latter as there are far too few incentives and
programs to educate and have one want to be a part of the
solution, not part of the problem. This, coupled with,
recalling the quote of Justice Brandeis “crime is contagious”
the fact while in one of our prisons only crime is learned,
shows why we are losing at least this battle in “The War.” An ounce of prevention
at a cheaper cost – or a pound of cure that is curing
nothing?
8
Of the
second, truth seems to not be given our public, our
citizens. I earlier
mentioned the failed plan of war in Vietnam. Again I liken our
current way of addressing our social ills of crime and drugs
with the way our citizens were informed of that war
(Vietnam). How we were told we were
in control, we were indeed winning that war, that the enemy was
virtually under control – only another 200,000 troops and a few
more billions of dollars would be required (this after the same
rhetoric and troop calls and billions spent while our citizens
went hungry and hope at home was being lost.) Then came Tet. All our failed
strategies were exposed as lies, or at best half-truths. Our citizens demanded
victory and with these half-truths acquiesced to the call for
more troops, more money etc. When it became clear the
battle plan had failed painful truths were revealed. Promises of victory were
not true and that war could not be won with the accepted plan no
matter how many sacrificial troops and how much money could be
thrown at the problem.
Currently
our citizens have been led to believe, as in that other war,
that the “war on crime,” the “war on drugs” is being won and can
be won with the same policy, the same strategy – just a few more
tens of millions of your dollars for more prisons to accommodate
the rising conviction rate and longer sentences. A few more warehouses
with no indubitable programs for education, drug-rehabilitation
or life skill programs.
Just get them locked up.
At the
dawn of the 1960’s hope sprang eternal. Camelot, The New
Frontier, and the Great Society offered hope. Then came the increased
spending on Vietnam. Then we could not fund
both guns and butter so we funded guns, forgot the butter (which
was the hope) and lost both. Today we can not fund
both prisons and reform.
We can not fund prisons and hope (which would in itself
be a deterrent to crime).
Shall we continue to fund a failed system of crime
control at the expense of social programs and re-habilitation
(the hope) and lose both the war on crime and hope? Shall we continue to
allow the slow undoing of such liberties as provided by our
Constitution until any victory would be a loss of all we have
held dear and the majority of the world
envies?
9
There are
solutions. There are so many
statistics to draw from to show us the way. Indeed, this is not a
newly discovered problem but only one that not comes to the
attention of the public because, like Tet, our financial state
has forced us to examine our wrong plan, our failure and either
map a new battle plan in this so called “war on crime” or
certainly lose both it and hope.
As long
ago as 1973 Fred R. Harris and others warned of this coming
failure. Over
thirty years ago Senator Harris wrote in his book in 1973 “We
have a government willing to spend an infinite amount to
incarcerate offenders but only a pittance on rehabilitation and
social reform.” The
outcome of that continued path for the past 30 years of the war
on crime is now evidenced by our financial woes caused in part
by the always increasing of funding for our expanding
prisons.
-
John Vernon DuBiel
1
This “Judicial
Jackasses” page is reserved primarily for J.V.D. to express his
thoughts and space for a small few whom we feel are, though not
necessarily wrongfully convicted, have served more than enough
time in cages and would better serve society if given the
opportunity to do so than being the expensive burden they
presently are to us all on our tax levies. I feel, for example,
that J.V.D. has a brilliant mind that is being wasted due to a
rather excessive sentence that should have been commuted long
ago.
Bias opinion due to
friendship?
No. I have
made friends in prison that are, and it saddens me to say, where
they belong. Three
have died before completing their sentence. One, 20 years younger
than me, went home and died overnight from an illness DOC had
neglected.
Our parole board is
constantly bombarded with criticism because once in a while they
release one who cannot endure outside life and becomes a repeat
offender. They
should not be ridiculed for these inevitable errors of
judgment. An irony
is that it causes them to make wrong decisions to deny release
when release should be granted and I am a classic example: In one week I received a
letter from the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals that my
conviction had been reversed, including the statement that
“Schoonover has not committed the crime and could not be charged
with it” and I was ordered released. When I drove back
to the prison to pick up my personal items there was a letter
waiting for me from the Parole Board denying parole. When I got back home
another letter was waiting from the Northern District Federal
Court dismissing my Habeas because I had illegally served more
than the imposed sentence as moot because I was already released
“and had not filed for monetary damages” from DOC. My mistake.
Please consider the
following:
![0ac159c22a1f17722b18fabf4f891[1].jpg](images/Img34.jpg)