Drug courts an alternative to reduce prison overcrowding

[DeniseJJ]

We have a severe prison overcrowding problem in Alabama. The Alabama Sentencing Commission reports that 2,974 defendants sentenced for drug possession and possession of marijuana were serving time in Alabama prisons as of Dec. 30, 2005.
The Sentencing Commission urges that the Legislature pass sentencing guidelines based on Virginia's sentencing guidelines. The Governor's Task Force on Prison Overcrowding is calling for alternatives to prison for nonviolent offenders. A better alternative is to set up drug courts in every county.
In Alabama, we lock up people who are sick so we do not have room to lock up people who have hurt us. Every time a judge sends someone to prison, someone else gets out. We ought to give nonviolent offenders with drug problems a chance to change their lives before we lock them up.

http://www.al.com/search/index.ssf?/...ws?ocom&coll=2

[alabamakatkat]

Do my eyes deceive me? I've been screaming this for a while. Thanks for posting, Denise.

Now we need to find out what to do with the debtors. Every time someone won't pay fines, child support, etc, we throw them in jail. Time to get a better plan for them, too.

God Bless you and your loved ones

KatKat

[stickvb]

Sounds good but they still need to do something with the people who are already incarcerated for drug reasons, thats where they need to start to relieve the overcrowding asap.

[cember]

Eek, I don't know about that.. I don't want the doors to open and for all the drug dealers and individuals who have made a career out of crime as a means to support their addiction to be suddenly set free... I'm a firm believer that psychological evaluations should be performed when determining who is fit to return into society or not. That's the only real way to let the right people loose, keep overcrowding at a minimum, and keep the streets safe.