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Do Americans Want More Jail or Less for Drug Traffickers?

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Opinion Research Corporation, polling Nov. 19 - 22, asked a sample of 1008 adults the following:  "Thinking about the criminal justice system, which comes closer to your view  --  that we have too many drug traffickers in prison for too long, or that we don't do enough to keep drug traffickers off the street?"

The result was not close:  58% said we're not doing enough to keep traffickers off the street, while only half that number, 30%, said we have too many traffickers in prison for too long.

The poll is devastating to the sentencing "reform" bills now pending in Congress. Those bills would reduce sentences for drug convictions (the Senate bill would do so retroactively as well), and the overwhelming majority of prison sentences imposed for federal drug offenses are for trafficking, not mere possession or use.

In other words, the American public, by a bigger margin than in any Presidential election in history, wants more done to keep traffickers off the street, not more done to put them back there.

Memo to Congress:  Wake up.
Below are the tabulated results.  "Not doing enough to take drug traffickers off the street" won in every age group, region and race.  It also won with both sexes, with women more heavily for strong enforcement (62% - 27%) than men.

*********************************************

Thinking about the criminal justice system, which comes closer to your view - (we have too many drug traffickers in prison for too long) OR

(we don't do enough to keep drug traffickers off the street)?

                                                                                                        Race

                                                                                                     -----------         Interview

                                     Sex                  Age                       Region           White Black  His-    Method

                                  ----------  ---------------------------- ------------------------- Only  Only   panic -----------

                                        Fe-    18-   35-   45-   55-       North-  Mid-              (Non- (Non-  (Any  Land- Cell

                           Total  Male  male    34    44    54    64   65+  east   West  South  West Hisp) Hisp)  Race) line  Phone

                             (A)   (B)   (C)   (D)   (E)   (F)   (G)   (H)   (I)    (J)    (K)   (L)   (M)   (N)   (O)   (P)   (Q) 

Unweighted Total            1008   504   504   198   133   162   185   320   183    219    379   227   704   104    79   508   500

Weighted Total              1008   486   522   300   165   178   168   187   184    215    374   235   639   113*  145*  366   642

Agree with either (Net)      880   416   465   260   143   165   141   164   173    194    313   201   564    90   130   319   561

                              87%   85%   89%   87%   86%   93%G  84%   88%   94%KL  90%K   84%   85%   88%N  80%   90%   87%   87%

  We don't do enough to      582   259   322   152    88   112    92   134   111    122    222   127   389    50    84   235   347

  keep drug traffickers off   58%   53%   62%B  51%   53%   63%D  55%   72%DE 60%    57%    59%   54%   61%N  45%   58%   64%Q  54%

  the street                                                            G

  We have too many drug      299   156   142   108    55    53    49    30    62     72     91    74   175    39    46    84   215

  traffickers in prison for   30%   32%   27%   36%H  33%H  30%H  29%H  16%   34%K   33%K   24%   31%   27%   35%   32%   23%   33%P

  too long

I do not agree with either    95    53    42    35    21     9    14    14     9     12     47    27    56    14    13    31    64

of these statements            9%   11%    8%   12%   13%F   5%    8%    8%    5%     5%    13%IJ 12%IJ  9%   12%    9%    9%   10%

Don't know                    28    16    12     3     2     3    10     8     2      7     13     6    17     7     2    12    16

                               3%    3%    2%    1%    1%    2%    6%DE  4%D   1%     3%     3%    3%    3%    6%    1%    3%    2%

Refused                        5     2     3     1     0     1     2     1     0      3      1     1     2     2     0     4     1

                               *     *     1%    *     0     *     1%    1%    0      1%     *     1%    *     2%    0     1%Q   *

___________________________________________________________________________________________

Proportions/Means: Columns Tested (5% risk level) - B/C - D/E/F/G/H - I/J/K/L - M/N/O - P/Q

Overlap formulae used.  

2 Comments

Can you provide a link to the source, Bill? The formatting here makes it hard to dig into this important data.

I do not yet have a link. The poll was sent to me by an attorney friend of mine.

I agree, the formatting of the data is very hard to understand, which is mostly due to my poor ability to reproduce on a computer a data table. If and when there is a (better) link, I'll post it.

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