Following is an editorial from today's Milwaukee Journal Sentinel:
"Their drug dealing made their neighbors around the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee vulnerable and uncomfortable.
Today, these young drug dealers - UWM students - will be confronted by those whom they victimized.
Dealing pot a victimless crime? Consider that the increased pot dealing resulted in a series of armed robberies at student apartments where drugs were sold - and two also at homes mistaken for drug houses.
This sort of confrontation is a basic component of restorative justice, which focuses on crime as an act against individuals and communities rather than the state. It's been having positive effects in other communities, and we like how it's being put into practice in the case of the UWM drug dealers.
All of the students who will be confronted today are first-time criminal offenders. They can have pending felony drug charges reduced to misdemeanors if they get treatment for their drug problems and stay out of trouble for six months.
But first they must face those whom they victimized.
This is smart in a couple of ways. Potentially, it diverts some young folks from starting on that familiar cycle of one felony begetting others. And it allows the neighbors, weary of the problems spawned by the drug use these pot dealers enable, to let them know that real people get hurt by their actions.
It isn't, as we suspect many of you are now thinking, an easy way out. The students will face Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett and Milwaukee County District Attorney John Chisholm, along with community groups, Milwaukee police officials and Murray Hill neighbors who are tired of their drug dealing ways.
Shaming them into good behavior? We suppose that's one way of looking at it, but we prefer viewing it as just another way of revealing to those who should know better that no crime - including pot dealing - is really victimless." (end of editorial)
Strikes me there are at least a couple of interesting issues going on here. Anyone?
"Their drug dealing made their neighbors around the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee vulnerable and uncomfortable.
Today, these young drug dealers - UWM students - will be confronted by those whom they victimized.
Dealing pot a victimless crime? Consider that the increased pot dealing resulted in a series of armed robberies at student apartments where drugs were sold - and two also at homes mistaken for drug houses.
This sort of confrontation is a basic component of restorative justice, which focuses on crime as an act against individuals and communities rather than the state. It's been having positive effects in other communities, and we like how it's being put into practice in the case of the UWM drug dealers.
All of the students who will be confronted today are first-time criminal offenders. They can have pending felony drug charges reduced to misdemeanors if they get treatment for their drug problems and stay out of trouble for six months.
But first they must face those whom they victimized.
This is smart in a couple of ways. Potentially, it diverts some young folks from starting on that familiar cycle of one felony begetting others. And it allows the neighbors, weary of the problems spawned by the drug use these pot dealers enable, to let them know that real people get hurt by their actions.
It isn't, as we suspect many of you are now thinking, an easy way out. The students will face Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett and Milwaukee County District Attorney John Chisholm, along with community groups, Milwaukee police officials and Murray Hill neighbors who are tired of their drug dealing ways.
Shaming them into good behavior? We suppose that's one way of looking at it, but we prefer viewing it as just another way of revealing to those who should know better that no crime - including pot dealing - is really victimless." (end of editorial)
Strikes me there are at least a couple of interesting issues going on here. Anyone?
Drugs should be legal.