Crime and Punishment: a Tenuous Link

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“If you sell drugs, you will be caught. And when you're caught, you will be prosecuted. And once you're convicted, you will do time.” With that tough, straightforward formula, President Bush vowed Sept. 5 in his first major television address, that he would help make America's neighborhoods safe from drug criminals. As he did in his speech last May outlining his administration's crime-prevention plan, the president stressed certainty of punishment and adequate prison cells as the keys to fighting crime. To assure that there will be enough prison cells to house the mounting numbers of new felons entering federal prisons, Bush has proposed $1.5 billion in new prison construction, almost doubling the capacity of the overcrowded federal system.

Criminal justice experts, however, are skeptical that Bush's emphasis on arrest and imprisonment will have much effect on drug crime. “The presumption here is, ‘If we crank up the sanctions, we'll scare the drug dealers off the street,’ “says Alfred Blumstein, dean of the School of Urban and Public Affairs at Carnegie-Mellon University. “[But] when you consider the sanctions dealers are facing from their competitors, which is capital punishment without due process, anyone who is deferrable is probably off the street [already].”