drug policy
Media discussion on eliminating state jails lacks nuance
Submitted by Gritsforbreakfast on Sun, 2010-07-11 09:02 Authored by GritsforbreakfastCoupla more stories on the possibility of revamping state jails to become more like intermediate sanctions facilities for probationers instead of little min-prisons:
TDCJ finds spare money during budget crunch for drug testing employees
Submitted by Gritsforbreakfast on Fri, 2010-06-11 09:04 Authored by GritsforbreakfastMy only question about this latest move by TDCJ: "What will you cut in the budget to pay for drug testing employees?" Mike Ward reports in the Statesman today that:
In a push to bolster security and curb contraband in Texas' massive prison system, officials for the first time plan to order random drug tests for a majority of the state's 41,000 corrections employees including all guards and parole officers.
Bryan Collier, deputy director of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice, said Thursday that the policy to be unveiled next week is designed to raise staffing standards inside Texas' 112 state prisons. ...
The drug testing "will cover a majority of the agency's employees," Collier said. "Any of us who are in this business, if people are doing drugs, we don't want them working in the institutions. It's not safe."
News Flash: Drug war a colossal failure. You're shocked, right?
Submitted by Gritsforbreakfast on Fri, 2010-05-14 06:14 Authored by GritsforbreakfastIn a surprisingly frank story, AP points out that the Drug War Emperor wears no clothes:
After 40 years, the United States' war on drugs has cost $1 trillion and hundreds of thousands of lives, and for what? Drug use is rampant and violence even more brutal and widespread.
Even U.S. drug czar Gil Kerlikowske concedes the strategy hasn't worked.
"In the grand scheme, it has not been successful," Kerlikowske told The Associated Press. "Forty years later, the concern about drugs and drug problems is, if anything, magnified, intensified."
This week President Obama promised to "reduce drug use and the great damage it causes" with a new national policy that he said treats drug use more as a public health issue and focuses on prevention and treatment.
Federal Prosecutors Along Southwest Border Overwhelmed by Soaring Drug, Immigration Cases
Submitted by Gritsforbreakfast on Mon, 2010-04-19 16:11 Authored by GritsforbreakfastThe indispensable Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse just released an excellent analysis of drug cases in the five federal judicial districts along the southwestern border, finding that federal drug prosecutions by US Attorneys' offices in those jurisdictions increased 30% overall in the last 16 months.
The report includes data from the Southern and Western Districts of Texas, but the big news was out of Arizona, which saw the number of federal drug prosecutions skyrocket by 202%. The next highest increase, though, was in Texas' Southern District (Houston) which saw its number of drug prosecutions increase 53% over the same period. By contrast, despite the widely publicized drug violence in Juarez, drug prosecutions in Texas' Western District declined by 4%. However that's partly because they were already engaged more heavily in drug prosecutions:
Dallas County District Attorney Craig Watkins: Restoring Credibility in the System
Submitted by Ann del Llano on Wed, 2009-11-18 11:35 Authored by Ann del Llano
In 1986, the Dallas County District Attorney's office used an official training manual that TRAINED Dallas County prosecutors to keep racial minorities off juries. Twenty years later, people with white skin are the racial minority in Dallas and the District Attorney is a black gentleman.
