Remember the Objective

Confiscating property to punish criminals is not a worthwhile, because innocent people suffer from this action. Drug dealers have friends and families. Imagine a drug dealer bought a house and got a girlfriend. They were engaged and had a child. The girlfriend and child lose their home and means to survive. People assume they move back home to their parents house; however, the girlfriend was dating a drug dealer and not welcome at home.

We are all happy when justice is served and criminals are punished; however, a mother and child are homeless or living with friends. Without a car it is difficult getting a job and dropping the child off at daycare. Children suffer because they have to move around. They may lose an ability to go to school and chances of living a normal life.

Anyone close to them does not want to report the crime, because of damage to innocent people. By removing the threat of punishing the innocent more people might feel comfortable reporting crime. How is this accomplished?

Laws should never take property away from individuals. In this case criminals make income illegally through black market trade. A fair punishment is to assess how much money was made to assess income taxes, charge an additional penalty and sentence the criminal to prison. After found guilty drug dealers would declare income. This legal tender can be used to pay FICA, Medicare and income tax. The penalty is not related to how many years they were in business. The penalty is for selling contraband in the United States. Studies have shown spending a day in prison allows a person to think about life. A three month to one year sentence gives them time to review the impact of actions.

Taxes might be more than they can pay at once and claimed after they are released from prison. Now they have a chance to work at a regular job to pay debts to society. A criminal history limits employment options. With a home and car to go to job interviews, they can pay penalties during the five year probation.

Chances of rehabilitation increase, because police are aware of activities. This means they are watched during probation to gain information about drug dealers. Enablers involved in drugs will limit association with them. Charged persons are required to take regular urine and blood tests. Even if only using drugs they might be accused of dealing drugs.

Charges associated to the crime are overwhelming and enforceable, yet intended to help everyone. This alteration makes it less strenuous to be wittiness. The wittiness no longer feels testimony is murdering another person; thereby, having to consider how dangerous the drug dealer is to society.

Government declared the War on Drugs, because drug users and innocent people were getting killed in the crossfire. Now it is a different group of people dying and innocent people are still getting killed in the crossfire. The only difference is government is responsible for some of these deaths. The objective was to stop violence and cure people of addictions. This is what we should accomplish.

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