Drug offenders in local state prisons:Prisons / Total inmates / possession / sales• Walker State Prison / 431 / 56 / 54• Hays State Prison / 1,676 / 62 / 54Source: Georgia Department of Correction
Georgia’s new governor has declared that putting drug offenders and addicts in jail is a financial burden on the state, but local authorities have mixed emotions about any changes to drug policies.
“We cannot afford to have so many of our citizens waste their lives because of addictions,” Gov. Nathan Deal said in his inauguration speech last week. “It is draining our state treasury and depleting our work force.”
It costs the state about $3 million a day to operate the Department of Corrections, Deal said in his speech. Drug offenses could be an area where changes could be made and money saved, he said. Speaker of the House David Ralston, R-Blue Ridge, also has alluded to changes in drug policies coming in the state.
Some solutions the governor suggested were to give nonviolent offenders the opportunity for “day reporting centers, drug, DUI and mental health courts and expanded probation and treatment options.”
In Georgia Department of Corrections prisons, 25 percent of inmates serving in 2010 had drug-related charges listed as their primary offense, an annual department report shows. Female offenders were higher at nearly 30 percent compared to male offenders around 24 percent, the report shows.
State Rep. Jay Neal, R-LaFayette, said he agreed with Deal and would support legislation that dealt with the large number of drug offenders who are imprisoned. But he couldn’t confirm whether any laws would be introduced in the new legislative session.
“We’re incarcerating a lot of individuals,” Neal said. “We’ve got to do something to break this cycle.”
But some authorities disagree, saying drug offenders serve only a small portion of their sentence anyway.
“It’s really hard to blame drug charges for prison overcrowding,” said Patrick Doyle, deputy commander of the Lookout Mountain Judicial Circuit Drug Task Force. “[Offenders] are not doing a lot of time.
“It looks stricter on paper than it is,” he said. “They have such long parole sentencing.”
Locking drug offenders in prison can’t be the only solution for stopping the offenses from recurring, said Georgia Bureau of Investigation Special Agent Rusty Grant, who is in charge of the Canton Regional Drug Office.
“We’re not going to be able to arrest our way out of the drug problem,” he said.
Police need to be able to tell the difference between offenders who are just supporting their habit and need treatment and those who are selling drugs for a business, Grant said. Drug courts can help identify those differences, he said.
An increase in probation and parole programs to try to rehabilitate offenders could be a solution as long as it “increases public safety,” Neal said.
“We don’t want to risk the public simply because we want to save money,” he said.
Walker County Sheriff Steve Wilson said he might support more programs for nonviolent drug offenders if they are paying for the service. But he said education needs to be a part of local programs.
The Walker sheriff’s department works with local schools and churches to tell community leaders, parents and teenagers about the latest drug problems and concerns.
“I think it starts in the homes and in the schools,” he said. “That’s not mandated by law.”
Contact staff writer Joy Lukachick at jlukachick@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6659. Follow her on Twitter at twitter.com/jlukachick.