Costs and Benefits? The Impact of Drug Imprisonment in New Jersey

Of the country's 2 million prisoners, 450,000 are incarcerated in prison or jail for drug offenses—more than the European Union, an entity with 100 million more people, has in prison for all crimes combined. States and the federal government continue to spend about $10 billion a year imprisoning drug offenders, and billions more on the "War on Drugs." And these costs do not include the impact incarceration has on the economic and social life of the country, individual states, and communities.

Around the country, states are reforming their drug laws in a way that places a greater emphasis on harm reduction, alternatives to incarceration, and crime prevention. According to a new report by the Drug Policy Alliance, there have been more than 150 changes in state legislation on a range of issues affecting drug offenders, including: advancing alternatives to incarceration, protecting medical marijuana patients and providers, expanding sterile syringe availability, and restoring benefits and voting rights to former drug offenders. The latest Justice Department report on prison populations indicates that there was a substantial growth in the nation's incarcerated population, but the number of people held in state prisons for drug offenses declined.

In Cost and Benefits? The Impact of Drug Imprisonment in New Jersey, the Justice Policy Initiative quantifies the impact of drug imprisonment in New Jersey. The overall picture that emerges from New Jersey is similar to other states: high rates of imprisonment of drug offenders in New Jersey have had a significant impact on the state's economic and social life as well as on the incarcerated, their families and communities. There is evidence that the cost of imprisoning drug offenders is not necessarily producing the benefit in declining drug use that state policymakers expect to realize.

JPI's analysis of the costs and impacts of drug imprisonment in New Jersey provides a context in which the state should consider, and enact, many of the reforms proposed by the Department of Corrections in their Preliminary Strategic Planning Document—a very promising set of initiatives that could repair the impact of drug imprisonment in New Jersey.

[excerpted from executive summary]