THE COMMITTEE ON UNJUST SENTENCING: STATEMENT OF AIM

The Committee on Unjust Sentencing is a service organization devoted to the interests of prisoners of the War on Drugs. The long-term goal is release from prison of all prisoners of the War on Drugs and reform of a criminal justice system that punishes illegal drug use with incarceration. The short-term goal is to help prisoners of the War on Drugs by any means available.

Consistent with this purpose is the belief that the Drug War is unnecessary, immoral, and irrational. It is unnecessary because it is unnecessary to punish people who use drugs with incarceration, and incarceration is central to Drug War policy. It is immoral because the harm done by the Drug War outweighs any conceivable benefit. It is irrational because the idea of a drug-free America or even a drug-free world that policy makers talk about is a fantasy that cannot be realized.

Opposition to Drug War policy is necessary for a number of reasons, one being to prevent the disaster that will follow if the Drug War is allowed to run its course. Already, the right to privacy, the right to property, and the exercise of personal autonomy have been eroded, to an extent unthinkable a quarter-century ago, in the evident belief that winning the War on Drugs ranks higher on a scale of values than upholding the principles of liberal democracy. Rather than sit back and watch the Drug War reduce America to a state like nothing known before, the alternative is to withdraw support of Drug War policy and act to bring the Drug War to a halt.

Acting on the belief that the American public is kept in ignorance of the facts behind the Drug War by means of propaganda and a compliant press, certain groups have set out to counteract the propaganda and inform the public of the danger to democracy the Drug War presents. The success in this direction of groups such as the Drug Policy Foundation in Washington shows in the mistrust of Drug War policy that is starting to inform the American public. The sacrifice of principles embodied in the Bill of Rights along with the waste of public funds and the folly of engaging in another round of Prohibition - discussion of such issues is beginning to re-shape the public's image of the War on Drugs.

The problem of opposing Drug War propaganda on rational grounds such as those suggested above is that one rational argument can always be produced to counter another. For example, to counter the argument that the War on Drugs consumes excessive public funds, it can be proposed that war does not come cheap: drug use constitutes a threat to American security, and America must win this war at any cost. On rational grounds there may be nothing to choose between the two sets of ideas, no reason to revise an opinion already held.

The contention of the Committee on Unjust Sentencing is that support for Drug War policy may be shaken by rational argument but not decisively. Drug War propaganda elicits negative emotion - hate, anger, scorn, and fear. To counter Drug War propaganda, an intervention must bring forth a contrary emotion, one that is stronger and prevails in the end just because it is positive - for example, the emotion of righteous indignation.

If rational debate gets nowhere, and the public requires access to information that elicits positive emotion, the question is where such information can come from. It can come from only one source: Drug War prisoners. Only prisoners know and are in a position to reveal the full scope of the horror of the Drug War, at least as it is evident inside America. Those who operate the Drug War have the facts but keep quiet as best they can. Prisoners know the truth and have nothing to lose by telling it.

The connection between revealing the truth to the public and bringing the Drug War to a halt needs explaining, as does the question how access to the truth can be obtained. The connection is that facts in the possession of prisoners are facts a majority of Americans would find abhorrent and impossible to reconcile with ordinary ideas of decency if only they knew. The result of becoming aware of such facts is sympathy with the person, drug user or no drug user, who is subject to the sort of treatment a Drug War prisoner is subject to - that and a resolve to correct the abuse in question. We all know the difference between right and wrong. Children know the difference between justice and injustice. Anyone familiar with the facts knows that what is being done to American people in the name of the War on Drugs is indefensible and cannot be allowed to continue.

The practical question is how to arrange for word to get from prisoners to the public outside prison. Committee on Unjust Sentencing policy is to engage in projects designed for this purpose. Examples of such projects include a First International Conference on Prisoners of the War on Drugs in Heidelberg, Germany (1996) and a Second International Conference on Prisoners of the War on Drugs in Toronto, Canada (1999). At both these conferences, papers by Drug War prisoners were read along with papers by activists and academics. Other examples include publication of The Tallahassee Project, a compilation of 100 photographs and commentary by prisoners in the women's prison FCI Tallahassee, and maintenance of a web site where material written by prisoners can be posted. Any means of getting information from inside prison to the public outside prison serves the purpose.

This is a useful procedure to follow. If Americans respond to systematic injustice and the infliction of suffering with a resolve to restore justice and requite the suffering, as history suggests we do, there is no better way to bring the Drug War to a halt and set Drug War prisoners free than conveying the truth from those who know to a public that as yet doesn't. That in a nutshell is the aim of the Committee.

The Committee on Unjust Sentencing, August 2001