Wow. Talk about a stupid idea. Here’s the latest ballot initiative from Republican Kevin Mannix – you know – the “sensible spending” party?

He wants to force judges to implement mandatory prison sentences onto drug dealers, felony property offenders, and identity thieves. At first glance, it sounds reasonable. Having your identity stolen is a big deal. Having your car get broken into sucks (I know – it’s happened to me twice). And who isn’t against drug dealers?

However, this is a horrible idea for at least a couple of reasons:

First, it takes drug treatment off of the table. The overwhelming majority of property crimes are committed by addicts in order to get money to feed their addictions. It’s pretty much common knowledge that addiction is a medical issue more than it’s a criminal issue. In other words, if you want to cut down on addicts stealing things, cure the addiction. Throwing drug addicts in jail won’t do this. It will actually just make things worse. The addicts will come out as newly hardened criminals, with no prospects for employment or housing – and the addiction will be just as bad, if not worse, then when they entered the incarceration system. Locking up addicts does NOTHING to reduce crime.

Secondly, our jails are already overcrowded, and we spend way to much on incarceration. Want to know which state spends the largest part of its state budget keeping people locked up? Oregon ^[1] , that’s who. And if Mannix’s crackpot idea gets voted into law, we’re looking at a 12% to 44% increase in our prison population, with a price tag of up to $200 million per year.

There’s just nothing good about this idea. Vote “no”, and urge everyone you know to do the same.