Heavy investment, little dividend

Last Tuesday, a 23 year-old Dominican woman was found guilty of importing heroin and sentenced to 14 years’ imprisonment. Sugeidy Castillo is the mother of two small children, one of whom was born in Malta. That child, whose first year of life was spent in prison with her mother, is now living with her grandmother in Spain.

How sane is it to keep stocking prisons with drug-related convictions?- Mark-Anthony Falzon

Castillo’s sentence came a week after that handed down to Paco Carmona Alvez, a 20-year-old Portuguese who will be spending the next 10 years in prison and paying a fine of €30,000 for importing heroin and cocaine.

To say that the two stories are tragic is to put it very mildly. What we have here are two people just past their teens whose life prospects have likely been nipped in the bud. We also have two families whose serenity is gone forever. (Who would manage a sound night’s sleep knowing that one’s son or daughter is in prison far away from home?)

Add to that a massive bill for police time and resources, the cost of the court proceedings, and that of keeping two more people in secure discomfort for many, many years.

Perhaps most seriously, in Castillo’s case we also have two young children who have been robbed of their mother’s care and affection by circumstances they cannot understand. As for the feelings of the mother herself, let’s not go there.

There are two easy options here: one is to talk tough and perhaps post cavalier online comments about drugs killing our children and such. I was shocked to see the dreaded ‘LOL’ reaction to Castillo’s story. ‘LOL’ at what? At the thought of a young woman giving birth in prison?

The second is to spare a moment’s mixed-bag sympathy and proceed to forget all about it. Prison is very good at making people invisible, as I’m reminded every time a Corradino van with darkened windows overtakes me in the Marsa traffic.

Neither of the two works for me. Rather, I find myself deeply moved and troubled at the thought of these two cruel outcomes. I don’t mean unfair judgments. I well understand Mr Justice Quintano’s words about “a difficult night ahead of him” following the guilty verdict for Castillo.

His job is to apply the law and I really wouldn’t want to be in his nightcap. I suppose these are the times he wishes he were still quietly teaching literature, as I remember him from several years ago.

The real debate lies elsewhere. It has nothing to do with whether or not drugs are harmful. It’s fairly clear they tend to make life nastier, more brutish, and shorter than is usual. Rather, one might ask how sane it is to keep stocking prisons with drug-related convictions. We know from Castillo’s and other savage sentences that the price is very high indeed. Question is, what are we getting for it?

A bad deal, according to the Global Commission on Drug Policy. This includes people like Carlos Fuentes, former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, entrepreneur Richard Branson, and former UN High Commissioner for Refugees Thorvald Stoltenberg.

This by way of establishing integrity, not infallibilty. The general impression is that people who conjoin the words ‘drugs’ and ‘legalisation’ are also into rooting for the independence of Comino or the setting up of Aryan colonies on Mars. Not these.

The Commission’s report, published in June 2011 to not as much controversy as one would have liked, starts off with these words: “The global war on drugs has failed, with devastating consequences for individuals and societies around the world.”

It goes on to make three important points. First, that there should be no place for taboos on open-minded and rational discussion. It is neither barmy nor polluting to rethink the relation between drugs and the law.

Second, that such a rethink is urgent. It is clear that years of macho legislation and cheap demagoguery have led nowhere. I quote: “Arresting and incarcerating tens of millions of people in recent decades has filled prisons and destroyed lives and families without reducing the availability of illicit drugs or the presence of criminal organisations”.

Third, that legalisation and decriminalisation are not either/or things. Legalising drugs doesn’t necessarily mean laissez-faire. There is a big difference for example between criminal organisations and couriers. The former are worth a solid and unrelenting fight, the latter less so.

Nor would legal regulation mean an abdication of responsibility. It would be mad to give up the fantastic rehab work done by Caritas, for example. On the contrary, a more sensible and structured approach would free up vast resources.

Why should the venerable Mgr Victor Grech be reduced to begging pennies on television? Surely the miles of barbed wire at Corradino cost any amount of supplicant airtime.

In other words, the commission is suggesting a mixed strategy: the full force of the law for big-time criminal networks, and more lenient and case-sensitive approaches for couriers and such cats’ paws.

Perhaps the metaphor of war works rather well after all. No good general would commit the full might of their troops and arsenal on a relatively insignificant and easily-replaceable enemy line.

The choice is simple really. We can keep sending people like Sugeidy Castillo down at a massive cost only to let someone else see to the supply of heroin.

Or we can sentence couriers to say many months of community work in drug rehab and spend the time and money saved on making it work. Rationally, I’d go for the second.

mafalzon@hotmail.com