Dennis Kintigh
Urban legend: An apocryphal, secondhand story told as true and just plausible enough to be believed, about some horrific, embarrassing, ironic or exasperating series of events that supposedly happened to a real person.
It is interesting, and a little troubling, how certain misconceptions get a grip on the public’s mind. One glaring example of this is the widely repeated claim that the state prisons are full of people who have been convicted of simply possessing drugs.
As someone who spent 24 years carrying a gun and a badge, most of that time working drug cases, including 14 years in Southeast New Mexico, I have known this was completely false. People don’t go to the pen for simply holding some dope.
In New Mexico, simple possession of up to a half pound of marijuana is only a misdemeanor that does not allow for a prison sentence – only time in the county jail, if that.
One of the most recent manifestations of this myth was in September 2009 when a New Mexico “think tank” published a report damning the state’s drug laws because 853 people were supposedly sitting in prison for only a drug possession conviction. That report motivated me to write a letter to the Corrections Department because the department was the source of that statistic.
The written response I received showed that the 853 number was for inmates who had a drug possession conviction plus other criminal convictions. In fact, the number of people incarcerated for simple drug possession was 92. That is 92 out of almost 6,000 inmates.
Repeat offenders
However, even the 92 number is misleading.
The Corrections Department sent me the names of the 92 inmates. Through the Internet I was able to review the cases for these individuals. Randomly checking their cases revealed what I already knew. Even though they were listed as convicted of a simple drug possession, they were, in fact, in prison because of probation revocation or for being a habitual offender.
What is a habitual offender, you might ask? Well that is someone who has already been convicted of at least one felony and is now convicted of another felony. The first subsequent conviction requires a mandatory one-year sentence even if the sentence of the subsequent conviction is suspended. The second subsequent conviction results in a mandatory three-year sentence. The third one requires an eight-year mandatory sentence.
All of these habitual offenders who are convicted of drug possession are in fact repeat offenders.
The long and difficult road to recovery
The individuals who are incarcerated because they have had their probation revoked had to work at getting into prison. In case after case judges have sentenced individuals to rehab or drug court and they have failed to comply. Finally, these persons are sent to prison because they have refused the second, third and sometimes even fourth chances offered to them.
One new thing I did learn is that some of these drug possession inmates are in the Corrections Department system because a judge has ordered a 60-day psychological evaluation at the facility in Las Vegas, N.M. After the evaluation, they come back to the court for final disposition.
People just do not go to prison for simply having a bag of weed. Those who advocate for eliminating incarceration as an option fail, or refuse, to recognize that fact.
The effort required to turn drug lives around is huge. It requires a change of heart that must come from deep within.
The threat of incarceration has been, for some, the crucial motivation necessary to start down the long and difficult road to recovery. Without that threat they would never begin the journey to true freedom. Instead, they remain a prisoner to their self destructive lifestyle. Where is the compassion in that?
Kintigh is a Republican House member from Roswell.