Cons or kids?

The War on Drugs is making kids stupid.

According to this report in today’s local paper, our local school district is about to face the possibility of increasing class sizes and eliminating some AP classes.

Why? No money. The state’s budget is a right mess and it that means education funding is going to take a hit.

Here’s a clip from the story:

State funding per student through the Education Finance Act would fall to $1,630, less than the 1995-96 school year, Greenville district spokesman Oby Lyles said. The district already has cut $47 million from its budget over the past two years.

Now, there is a lot of blame to go around. A quick check of a database shows spokesman Oby Lyles makes $121,947 per year, which in this part of the world is no small chunk of change. By comparison, a middle school principal I know makes $93,000 a year, or $28,947 less than a guy who takes calls from the media about how we can’t afford to keep educating the kids. Life’s funny, huh?

While that may stick in your craw a bit, let’s put the blame on something a little more egregious.

A South Carolina commission just released a report that should make you think twice about whether you really believe all drug offenders should go to prison.

Chew on this: Twenty years ago, South Carolina prisons housed 473 people who had been convicted for drug-related crimes. At the time, that was six percent of the total prison population. In 2009, there were 4,682 people in prison cells on drug offenses. That number makes up 20% of our current South Carolina prison population.

Do the math. The percentage of total inmates in prison for drug offenses has more than tripled in 20 years. A full 1/5 of everybody in prison in South Carolina is there because of a drug conviction.

Someone who is not from around here might look at that number and think, “Holy smokes, they have a real drug problem!” In fact, the increase is a result of a two-decade, expensive, multi-pronged drug battle that nobody can win. The laws have changed, the enforcement has increased, and the sentencing for drug crimes has become even more harsh. This seems to be the case all around America, drug crimes are now being viewed as more important. Due to the recent changes in the sentencing of those accused of drug crimes, people charged will want to try and find a criminal lawyer to help them if they’ve been wrongfully accused.

Having one drug offender in jail usually costs around $14,000 a head annually, that means $65,548,000 is being spent to take care of drug offenders. That amount is more than the entire corrections budget was 25 years ago.

No one believes that every one of those drug offenders should be set free. Some of them are a real scourge on the community, but a great many of those people are low-level offenders and/or people convicted of crimes involving marijuana. And more of them are entering the system every day thanks to services like RJF Felons who help them to find work. From the commission’s report:

Research and data show that the increase in national prison populations was driven not by an increase in crime, but by state decisions to put more low-risk, non-violent offenders behind bars, to increase prison terms for violent and non-violent offenders alike, and to neglect community corrections and reentry programs, so a significant number of parole and probation violators return to prison.

The Corrections Department is expecting the number of inmates to go up dramatically in the coming years, such that it will have to build an entirely new prison at a cost to the state of $317 million. That will be a necessity unless something changes.

In a moment of rather surprising enlightenment, the bipartisan commission in Columbia came up with a conclusion you might not expect to come from this state.

“Prison space should be reserved for violent criminals and those with violent tendencies. Research shows that low-risk offenders, those who pose minimal risk to the public, are more effectively managed outside the prison system. After an in-depth analysis of the state’s sentencing and corrections data, the Commission has developed recommendations that will reduce recidivism while also reducing the costs of corrections…

With such a significant cost facing South Carolina taxpayers, the question to answer is whether building more prisons to accommodate low-risk, non-violent offenders is the smartest use of tax payers’ money to protect public safety. The opinion of the Commission is that it is not.

And, with that, the commission recommends that the sentencing guidelines for non-violent crimes (read: property and drug offenses) be changed such that a lot of offenders don’t end up in prison when they could be better rehabbed elsewhere and at less cost.

Of course, that makes too much sense, right?

One of the biggest problems with getting this kind of stuff done is convincing lawmakers to pass any laws or amendments to laws that seem soft on drugs. First you have lawmakers who love pandering to a conservative base that still believes “Reefer Madness” is a true-to-life documentary. Then you have the other lawmakers who are terrified of being labeled “soft on crime” during the next election cycle. Like the already-rung bell, there’s no chance of undoing what’s been done in South Carolina as it relates to drug laws and sentencing guidelines.

But I wonder if any lawmaker could have some success in saying the following:

“I am a conservative and I believe in conservative principles. I believe we should not spend more than we earn. I believe that our children are our greatest resource. I believe nothing should take priority over the education of our youth. While I do not use drugs and believe in our laws against them, I am offended by the notion that we should spend more per year housing a a drug user in prison than we do educating a child. We can still keep our community safe without wasting tens of millions of dollars a year keeping minor drug offenders in our correctional facilties. While it may not seem ideal, I believe it’s a conservative approach to making sure South Carolina schools improve until they are the best in the nation.”

Nah, that would never work.

But, look at it this way, if we keep churning out stupid kids, at least we have laws and sentencing guidelines that will get them three hots and a cot after they get busted for slinging rock.