Two authors support Issue 1 on racial, treatment grounds
Two well-known authors are speaking out in favor of Issue 1, the proposed state constitutional amendment on the Nov. 6 ballot that would reduce some drug possession crimes from felonies to misdemeanors.
“Prisons and also jails are really ill-equipped to solve in any substantive way, problems of drug addiction,” said Piper Kerman, who authored the best-selling book, “Orange is the New Black,” after spending 13 months in a federal prison for a nonviolent drug charge.
Kerman and Michelle Alexander, author of the 2010 book “The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness,” were interviewed by the Springfield News-Sun. Both have been advocating on behalf of the proposed amendment.
“We need to learn from our failed drug war . ... A war on drugs that was born with black folks in mind, but it is now threatening the futures of people of all colors,” said Alexander, who argues in the book that mass incarceration is “a stunningly comprehensive and well-disguised system of racialized social control that functions in a manner strikingly similar to Jim Crow.”
Issue 1 opponents say the proposed amendment does not directly address race.
“The Vote No committee, members of which are widely diverse, is concerned solely with the content of the issue, which would be bad law if passed,” said Chan Cochran, spokesman for the committee. “It removes discretion of judges to enforce addiction treatment, it releases all kinds of felony prisoners from prison early with just a few exceptions, it locks experimental law in the constitution where it is difficult to change, and according to the state Office of Budget and Management, it will not produce the promised savings or treatment.”
Business leaders are concerned that Issue 1 de facto sanctions drug use and will make it harder for employers to find workers who can pass a drug test, something they already struggle with, Cochran added.
Alexander argues that Issue 1 would benefit Ohio’s economy because fewer people would have felony convictions that would prevent them from working many jobs, and more people would be treated for drug addiction that often prevents them from being productive members of society.
Kerman moved to Ohio four years ago and teaches writing classes at two prisons. The status quo of locking up drug users has done nothing to solve the state’s drug addiction crisis, she said.
“We have really punitive drug laws and Ohio struggles with one of the highest drug overdose rates in the country,” she said.
Money saved by incarcerating fewer individuals could go into the programs that are seeing results, Kerman said, like drug courts, which have been successful in many cities but are lacking in rural areas of Ohio.
“Whenever possible, keeping someone in the community, getting them the help they need, gets much better results than sending them into state prison,” she said. “That’s the policy change that Issue 1 puts into place.”
Alexander and Kerman both pointed to other states — including Utah, Alaska and Oklahoma — which have lowered penalties for nonviolent drug possession offenses and seen positive results.
Oklahoma — which for years had one of the highest incarceration rates in the country, especially for women — has seen a 29 percent decrease in felony cases since passing a measure similar to Issue 1 in 2016, according to The Oklahoma Policy Institute. There has been a slight drop in the overall crime rate over the same time period, the institute says.
Opponents argue that Issue 1 would not result in any appreciable savings at the state level and would be more costly at the local level. The Springfield News-Sun reported earlier this week that all 11 Montgomery County Common Pleas Court judges are opposed to Issue 1.
One of their arguments is that Issue 1 would eliminate a court punishment that is often used to get people into treatment.
On Thursday, the Ohio Conference NAACP announced its endorsement of Issue 1 because the civil rights organization believes it will addresses racial disparities in Ohio’s justice system.
“A Yes vote on Issue 1 is a big step forward for Ohioans of color who have faced racial disparities at every stage of Ohio’s criminal justice system. There has been a culture of criminalization in Ohio and across the country that disproportionately harms African-Americans and people of color,” said Tom Roberts, president of the Ohio Conference NAACP.