Drug Policy News

'Tulia': The Case of the Lone Star Witness
By Sara Mosle
"Tulia," Blakeslee's expansion of that coverage, is a devastating critique of Texas' judicial system and the nation's drug laws. But it is foremost a riveting legal thriller about the inspirational men and women - including those in and around Tulia - who refused to let the injustice stand. Atticus Finch, after all, was from a small Southern town, too. And "Tulia," in Blakeslee's rich and deeply satisfying telling, resembles nothing so much as a modern-day "To Kill a Mockingbird" - or would, that is, if the novel were a true story and Atticus had won."

Rethinking the war on drugs
Maryland Herald-Mail
"Crime has apparently become an equal-opportunity activity, according to a report from the U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics."
"All of this growth in the correctional system is part of a trend the study's authors say began in the 1990s, when lawmakers added mandatory minimum sentences for illegal drug users."
"A spokesman for The Sentencing Project, which promotes alternatives to prison, said that the number of drug offenders incarcerated nationwide has jumped from 40,000 in 1980 to 450,000 today."
"Another group, the Washington, D.C.-based Justice Policy Institute, noted that the number of inmates as grown even as the nation's crime rate dropped."