Upholding the law

Fort Wayne Observed notes comments made by Allen County Prosecutor Karen Richards in a Wall Street Journal article and follows up with a podcast interview with the prosecutor. The WSJ asked her to comment on a new approach to drug dealers getting some nationwide interest. Instead of being arrested, suspected nonviolent drug dealers are given a second chance, subjecting them to pressure from the "influentials" in their lives such as mothers and mentors.

Richards doesn't think much of the approach. She tells FWOb:

The bigger problem I have with the program is any commodity is regulated by supply and demand, and this program has nothing to do with either supply or demand. It doesn't do anything with drug addicts so you're never going to have any less people wanting any less narcotics, and it really doesn't get rid of the drug dealers because the need is always going to be there.

No matter what you think of drugs and whether they should be legal or not, Richards is right that this is a bad approach. Once something is identified as illegal, a certain number of people will be willing to cross the line and do it anyway. If the crime were legislated away, those same people would merely find some other way to break the law. The point is to persuade people on the line not to cross it. And you do that only by taking the law seriously and prosecuting those who break it consistently and thoroughly.

Those of who look at the law with at least some libertarian instincts would like fewer laws cluttering up our daily lives, and some of us do worry about some of the extreme measures in the War on Drugs. But the laws that are there have to be enforced. Giving a whole class of criminals a pass and a "second chance" might seem to make some temporary headway on a particular type of crime, but it's overall, long-term impact cannot be good.