In fact, there were some suggestions of negative impacts of harsh policies, in that “[c]ounties that made fewer drug arrests, and concentrated their enforcement efforts on felony manufacture or sale rather than simple drug-possession offences were significantly more likely to experience declines in violent crime.... Counties that rarely imprisoned low-level drug offences showed the largest reduction in violent and property crime” (pp. 10–11). Minor drug arrests appear to have “no relationship to, and no impact on, either crime or drug abuse” (p. 14). Notably, Californians voted by a 61%–39% margin in 2000 to require drug treatment instead of jail for those arrested for drug possession or use. Indeed, it would appear that they have learned that they are not getting “value for money” from the billions of dollars being spent to imprison small drug-users. In fact, California voters were not alone in demanding reform of harsh drug laws: there were drug policy issues on ballots in seven states in the recent election, and in five of them, harsh drug laws were voted out.
Combined with the long-term drop in crime (especially violent crime) that has taken place over the past ten to fifteen years, as well as the budget crises at the state level, this gradual recognition in the US of the enormous costs of harsh sentences, with little criminal justice benefits, has — in fact — led to a decline in support for prisons as a one-(jumbo)-size-fits-all solution. As King and Mauer (2002) noted already in 2002, this decline in the attractiveness of prisons as political institutions is reflected in the “roll-back” of pro-prison policies in a number of state legislatures across the US. To name simply a few, certain mandatory minimum sentences have already been eliminated or reduced. For example, Louisiana has recently imposed the three-strikes requirement that all three offences be