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 Misguided Federal Drug Law Enforcement Priorities
by Mark Greer
ATTORNEY GENERAL John Ashcroft responded to the Justice
Department's latest figures on drug prosecutions by claiming that they
prove that "federal law enforcement is targeted effectively at convicting
major drug traffickers and punishing them with longer lockups in
prison."
The data the department released show almost the opposite:
that the nation's tough drug sentencing regime is, to a great extent,
being used to lock up comparatively low-level offenders who could
easily be prosecuted in state courts. The data, far from affirming that
the federal drug effort is a success, raise real questions about the
federal government's prosecutorial priorities in the war on drugs.
The growth in federal drug prosecutions over the past two decades has
been prodigious. Between 1984 and 1999, the number of suspects
referred to federal prosecutors in drug matters tripled, to more than
38,000 -- of whom 84 percent were prosecuted.
Drug cases during that
time went from 18 percent of the total federal criminal caseload to 32
percent. According to other department data, drug convicts now
account for 57 percent of the federal inmate population, in contrast to
only 21 percent of the much larger state population.
This growth is not, as the attorney general suggests, largely the result
of locking up major traffickers. In 1999 only about one-half of 1
percent of criminal referrals were for the most serious drug cases --
those involving what are known as continuing criminal enterprises --
and these led to only 116 actual prison sentences. Two-thirds of drug
defendants could not afford to hire their own lawyers, a good indication
that they were hardly high-level traffickers.
In fact...
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