The Tension between Treatment and Punishment for Drug Offenders: An Examination of Two Ballot Propositions

• In Event: Responses to Substance Use and Abuse: Specialty Courts and Treatment

Abstract

In 2000, Californians voted to enact Proposition 36, the Drugs, Probation and Treatment Act, which diverted non-violent offenders of simple drug possession directly into treatment rather than processing them through the courts. Eight years later, Californians decidedly rejected Proposition 5, the Nonviolent Offender Rehabilitation Act, which would have expanded program eligibility for more offenders. This paper explores why Proposition 36 passed but Proposition 5 failed. I examined voting data to illustrate county differences in support for the two propositions. In addition, I conducted a content analysis of newspaper accounts of the propositions in the year leading up to each election. The propositions’ supporters often emphasized the disease nature of addiction and the need for treatment rather than incarceration. The propositions’ opponents often used dramatic language and images akin to a “moral panic” to sway voters. Anti-proposition arguments portrayed the propositions as “slippery slopes” toward decriminalization and linked drug offenders to violent crime. Ultimately, these two propositions reveal the ongoing tension between considering drug addiction as a disease that needs to be treated and conceptualizing it as a crime that needs to be punished.

Author

• Jennifer Murphy, Penn State Berks