So I was reading a post that Radley wrote over at The Agitator about the Colomb Family. And I noticed something in particular that really worried me.

Inmates were selling one another photos, case facts, and even grand jury testimony about pending cases, then calling up federal prosecutors offering to testify in exchange for time off of their own drug sentences. “Hey, Mr. Prosecutor, I sold that family drugs, too! What can you give me?

This is what happens when so many people end up in prison who are actually really smart people. With a massive drug war going on, plenty of intelligent people end up in prison on minor drug offenses. And it’s not like they’re going to get dumb all of sudden when they’re in there. And I imagine a lot of them will do whatever they can to get out of prison, I mean escapes aren’t an uncommon thing.

But only a prohibitionist drug policy like the War on Drugs would make it so easy to get out of prison legally. All they have to do is testify against someone with charges relating to drug selling, and you can shave a few years off your life. And think, there won’t be statewide manhunts, or an America’s Most Wanted piece to go after them. All it takes is some social networking on part of the inmates. Everybody likes social networking right?

This really makes me think about torture and the fact that information gained from torture is often unreliable and false. It worries me when our prison inmates are doing things just like tortured war prisoners are. Not to be overly dramatic or anything, but I don’t think this would an issue if we weren’t having a “War” on Drugs.

Tags: drug war, minor drug offenders, Prison, Torture