Kathy Bates Takes on Drug Legalization

Posted by David Boaz

The new NBC drama “Harry’s Law” has a preposterous premise, but it does give Kathy Bates a chance to chew some scenery. In the pilot — to be repeated tonight at 8 p.m. — she’s defending a young black man facing jail time for drug possession. And she unleashes a tirade against the drug war and against an outmatched prosecutor. Conservative bloggers have complained because Bates’s character Harriet “Harry” Korn said that the idea of drug decriminalization ”was first raised by conservative Republicans . . . when the party had thinkers, before it was hijacked by the likes of Rush Limbaugh.” (Exchange begins at about 24:00 in the episode.)

Looking for video of her courtroom speech, I found this excellent discussion from Inimai Chettiar and Rebecca McCray of the ACLU. I yield the floor to them:

While the opening few minutes are a bit absurd (Harry’s first client is a third-time drug offender who literally lands on her after jumping off a building), the show’s pilot brings to light the serious problem of overincarceration in our country.

In her closing argument to a jury in defense of a young man charged with cocaine possession (minutes 27-31 of the episode), Harry delivers a touching and evidence-based appeal to the jury and argues that incarceration is not the appropriate way to deal with drug offenders. She points out:

“[S]tudy after study after study has shown that when you take kids like Malcolm [her young black client] and you stick them in jail, you increase the likelihood that they’ll remain addicts, or wind up homeless, or worst of all become more hardened and career criminals. When it comes to drug abuse, treatment is seven times more cost effective than incarceration. Seven times. It’s an indisputable fact.”

Since television statistics can often be far from the truth, we did a little research. It seems the show’s “seven times” statistic may be based on a 1994 reportcommissioned by the White House’s Office of National Drug Control Policy. Several recent studies also show that treatment is far more cost effective than incarceration for drug offenses. Drug offenses, especially possession, are often indicative of addiction. And addiction, more than being a criminal offense, is something that can be treated. Treatment rehabilitates drug offenders at a lower cost, allowing them to become productive members of society. Incarcerating someone is expensive. And as Harry so effectively points out, prison “neither treats nor trains nor rehabilitates” — it merely risks making someone more dangerous and likely to commit crimes in the future. Harry is right: these are the facts.

In one of the more poignant moments in her speech, Harry argues that “intrinsic to justice is humanity. Humanity couldn’t call for this young man to be locked up — it simply couldn’t.” It’s true. Not only is it inhumane to lock up people who are addicted to drugs, it’s unreasonable and fiscally irresponsible.

Taxpayers spend almost $70 billion a year on corrections and incarceration. There are 1.6 million Americans in prison — that is triple the amount of prisoners we had in 1987 — and 25 percent of those incarcerated are locked up for drug offenses. When those who are incarcerated are released, they earn approximately 40 percent less than they did before entering prison — that means their economic mobility is almost half of what it was before incarceration. In times of a global economic crisis, do we really want to spend this much money locking up small time offenders? And do we really want to lock up such a large chunk of our labor force and decrease their future earning potential when it could serve as a drag on our future economic recovery? And on top of all this, it’s proven ineffective to imprison people for drug offenses — incarceration doesn’t fix the problem of drug addiction.

It’s even more ineffective (and inhumane) to lock up our kids who are addicted to drugs — as Harry points out, doing so is akin to throwing them away — thereby increasing the likelihood they will have lives filled with inhumane prison conditions, mental health problems, lack of economic opportunity, and continued addiction. And by imprisoning our children for drug offenses, we risk creating a cycle that may prevent their kids from having brighter futures. One in every 28 children in this country has a parent behind bars, up from one in 125 just 25 years ago. We are sacrificing these children’s lives as well. Just as we increasingly can’t afford the cost of incarceration, we can’t afford to lose our kids and our country to the cycle of incarceration and poverty.

The show’s perspective isn’t necessarily profound, but it is pleasant to hear Harry’s words cut through the din of fear-driven plotlines that have for so long been a staple in popular television crime dramas.

Bonus libertarian point: The title “Harry’s Law” reminds me of “Harry’s War,” a 1981 movie about the depredations of the IRS.

As we get ready for John Boehner to take the gavel from Nancy Pelosi on Wednesday, I find myself thinking back to the last time a Republican speaker took control of the House from a Democrat -- and reflecting on how far down the wrong road we have traveled since then.

It was January 1995, and Newt Gingrich, now considered a right-wing bomb thrower, was taking the gavel from Tom Foley. After taking the oath of office, he delivered a speech that praised FDR as "the greatest president of the 20th century" and presented concern for the least among us as a shared national objective. "The balanced budget is the right thing to do," he said. "But it does not in my mind have the moral urgency of coming to grips with what is happening to the poorest Americans."

For the incoming Republican speaker, reducing poverty and lifting the poor into the middle class was a moral imperative beyond the left vs. right battlefield -- not just the purview of lefties, socialists, and community organizers:

I say to those Republicans who believe in total privatization, you cannot believe in the Good Samaritan and explain that as long as business is making money we can walk by a fellow American who is hurt and not do something.... If you cannot afford to leave the public housing project, you are not free. If you do not know how to find a job and do not know how to create a job, you are not free. If you cannot find a place that will educate you, you are not free. If you are afraid to walk to the store because you could get killed, you are not free.

So now, with poverty higher than it was 16 years ago, with greater income inequality, and with the middle class struggling to hold on, what will Speaker Boehner make his number one priority? According to the Washington Post, it's "cutting spending," followed by repealing the healthcare law, and "helping get our economy moving" (no specifics on how he plans to do that).

Yet we saw on 60 Minutes that he's very aware of how fragile the American Dream has become, telling Lesley Stahl, "I can't go to a school anymore. I used to go to a lot of schools. And you see all these little kids running around. Can't talk about it." And he choked up when he did try to talk about "making sure these kids have a shot at the American Dream, like I did. It's important."

Interestingly, in his first speech as speaker, Gingrich also talked about being moved by the woes of school kids.

"I have seldom been more shaken," he said, "than I was after the election when I had breakfast with two members of the Black Caucus. One of them said to me, 'Can you imagine what it is like to visit a first-grade class and realize that every fourth or fifth young boy in that class may be dead or in jail within 15 years? And they are your constituents and you are helpless to change it?' For some reason, I do not know why, maybe because I visit a lot of schools, that got through. I mean, that personalized it. That made it real, not just statistics, but real people."

But the trajectory of our political discourse over the last decade and a half has meant that taking on poverty has gone from a moral imperative and shared national objective to an afterthought -- or no thought at all.

The question is, is there anything that can be done to help Boehner make the connection between the policies he supports and the effect those policies have on the kids who bring him to tears?

Newt Gingrich failed to follow through on the moral imperative he identified in his first speech as speaker, trading in his moral vision and replacing it 15 months later with an announcement that the Republican agenda could be reduced to six words: "Earn more, keep more, do more."

Will Boehner's take be "Earn more, keep more, cut more"? Or is there a chance he will surprise us? Maybe it's because it's close enough to Christmas that I still believe in miracles, but wouldn't it be great if the John Boehner who takes the gavel on Wednesday is the one who weeps at the thought of kids denied a shot at the American Dream?

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Monday, January 24, 2011

Kids Making Money

Kathy Bates Takes on Drug Legalization

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