Friday, March 14, 2008

Last month we told you that the Drug Policy Alliance Network (DPA’s lobbying entity) is sponsoring the most ambitious sentencing and prison reform in United States history—the Nonviolent Offender Rehabilitation Act (NORA). As we said in the announcement last month, NORA will not just slow California’s rampant prison expansion; it will actually reduce the number of people in prison by tens of thousands within just a few years, while maintaining public safety and saving taxpayers billions of dollars. At the same time, it will provide a comprehensive model for a public health approach to substance use.

We are so grateful to our DPA Network supporters all over the state who have jumped in to help the campaign!

We are particularly thankful to All of Us or None, “a national organizing initiative of prisoners, former prisoners and felons, to combat the many forms of discrimination that we face as the result of felony conviction.” All of Us or None is helping to build awareness of and gather signatures for NORA in Sacramento, San Francisco, Los Angeles and San Diego. With the many wonderful organizers out there, we are moving steadily toward our goal of gathering well over 430,000 valid signatures by the end of April to ensure that the measure will appear on the November state ballot.

Proposition 36, the state’s successful treatment-instead-of-incarceration program that DPA Network helped write and pass in November 2000, paved the way for NORA. Prop 36 has generated more than $1.5 billion in net savings in just seven years and reduced the number of nonviolent drug law offenders behind bars—and has not been associated with any increase in crime.

Tens of thousands of additional nonviolent offenders would qualify for similar diversion programs under NORA, dramatically reducing the number of people locked up unnecessarily and at the same time decreasing the likelihood of recidivism. By significantly reducing the size of the prison population, NORA is projected to save at least $2.5 billion in prison construction savings because new facilities will not need to be built. NORA would also make low-level marijuana possession an infraction—equivalent to a traffic ticket—rather than a misdemeanor, a sentencing change that could affect 40,000 people a year and conserve millions of dollars in court resources for other, more serious cases.

This comprehensive and cost-saving reform package, with a focus on a public health approach to substance use problems, will put California at the forefront of drug policy reform and set the bar for other states to reach.