We Don't Need to Give Up Our Constitutional Protections to Fight the War on Drugs

• NCJ Number: 123577
• Journal: Criminal Justice Volume: 5 Issue: 1 Dated: (Spring 1990) Pages: 2-5,42,43
• Author(s): S Dash; S R Goretsky
• Date Published: 1990
• Length: 6 pages
• Publication Format: Article
• Publication Type: Survey
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America

Annotation

Knowledge about how to fight crime effectively is limited but enough to prove false many of the popularly espoused solutions proposed by political leaders who call for fewer constitutional rights, tougher sentences, and more prisons.

Abstract

Many complain that too many criminals get off on technicalities because of constitutional protections, while crime victims have no protections. They associate "soft on crime" justice with the Warren Court era of the 1960s, but the crime threat to the public was no greater then than it had been before, when criminal defendants had no rights at all, nor since, despite the "tough on crime" Burger and Rehnquist Court eras. A 1988 American Bar Association Special Committee report exposed as myth the large public belief that constitutional protections for accused persons are to blame for America's crime problem. Police chiefs, district attorneys, and judges stated that constitutional protections are not a significant obstacle to their ability to solve crime and prosecute criminals. Yet, some political leaders use the Bill of Rights as a scapegoat for their own failure to address the crime problem honestly. The public complains about crime but appears unwilling to pay for workable solutions. In the war on drugs, police have arrested and prosecutors have successfully prosecuted thousands of drug dealers, but they have not made a dent on the illegal drug market. Law cannot be properly enforced where too many people want to violate it, unless it works in conjunction with treatment and education strategies; yet the war on drugs program allots only a small fraction of its resources to these strategies. Drug cases are overwhelming the criminal justice system, which deals with only a fraction of the crime committed and cannot eradicate crime single-handedly. The system is inadequately funded, and constitutional protections guaranteed to all citizens are not a significant handicap.