A 'JIHAD' ON USERS

The Dec. 19 Chronicle article "Houston's rise in violent crime outpaces U.S." said that "violent crime in Houston increased at nearly twice the national level." Certain deductions about this near doubling of violent crime in Houston are obvious.

Houston and Harris County lead the world in the incarceration of our citizenry; mostly for drug charges, minor amounts, empty bags, empty pipes or for failing a urine test for drugs. Our jails are so overcrowded that prisoners sleep underneath bunks and next to toilets, and we are contemplating building additional jails to house more drug users. Our jails and prisons are so swamped with drug prisoners that we find it necessary to provide early release to violent criminals to make room for these minor drug offenders.

Many cities and states around this nation ( even within Texas ) have found it necessary to ease back on sentencing drug users. They have found it necessary and prudent to cease the arrest and sentencing of those found with empty bags, pipes and minor amounts of drugs.

Harris County District Attorney Chuck Rosenthal says "when the only tool you have to work with is a hammer, everything begins to look like a nail." Police Chief Harold Hurtt, a black man, seems indifferent to the fact that Houston arrests blacks at a rate significantly higher than that of South Africa under apartheid. Houston and Harris County lead the world in the incarceration of our own people, and yet we seek to build more jails, to send more people to prison for longer periods of time for minor amounts of drugs. At some point, for moral reasons, for fiscal reasons, we will have to back down from our "jihad" against drug users.

Perhaps then, our police force can focus its attentions on violent criminals, and we'll have plenty of prison beds available so the predator types can serve their full sentence.

DEAN BECKER

spokesman, Law Enforcement Against Prohibition, Houston