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Trumbull statistic suggests link between crime and drugs grew in 2015
By Ed Runyan
WARREN
The connection between overall crime and illegal drugs apparently grew stronger in Trumbull County in 2015.
The number of criminal cases processed in Trumbull County Common Pleas Court rose by 38 cases compared with 2014 to a record number of 1,037. The total exceeded 1,000 for the first time.
And, the percentage of those cases with a link to drug abuse or drug trafficking reached a record high of 49.2 percent, according to statistics from the Trumbull County Prosecutor’s Office.
The latter statistic represents a huge increase over 2014, when 39.6 percent of the common pleas court criminal cases had at least one charge that was drug-related.
Prosecutor Dennis Watkins said he thinks the numbers suggest that Ohio’s current approach to punishing drug offenders should be changed – again.
Punishment in the United States for drug crimes has undergone significant changes since 1975, when harsh sentencing guidelines in Ohio were eliminated after similar changes at the federal level.
Someone convicted in Ohio in 1975 of selling a small amount of marijuana, heroin or cocaine was subject to 20 to 40 years in prison. Today, a similar offense typically results in the offender’s getting probation or a short prison term.
“I thought we were more effective when the drug laws were tougher,” Watkins said.
Watkins, who has been Trumbull County prosecutor for 31 years and began his career with the office in 1971, said he recalls a Trumbull County case in the 1970s in which an offender got 40 to 80 years in prison on two counts of selling small amounts of heroin.
The increase in drug crimes suggests to him that today’s punishment for drug crimes is not sufficient to deter someone from committing such offenses.
Watkins compared the lesser punishment now for drug offenses to the harsher penalties for drunken driving that were enacted in the 1980s.
“In the 1970s, we were light on drunk driving and killing people on roads,” Watkins said. But because of the tougher sentencing laws, “we now have the lowest number of people being killed on highways from drunk driving in many years,” he said.
Watkins said, however, there are significant differences among people committing drug crimes. “If you are a first-time offender, you should get probation and get treatment. When it doesn’t work, the law should protect the public,” he said.
Common Pleas Court Judge Ronald Rice said prison is necessary for those people who have multiple drug convictions, but he doesn’t believe longer sentences are the answer to reducing drug crimes.
As a society, the better way to spend our money than on prisons is education, he said.
Through reading reports written by the county adult probation department about defendants, he has concluded that three factors are usually present in the lives of most defendants: a lack of parental guidance, lack of education and a drug problem.
“It’s amazing when you read the [presentence investigations] how many of them have a drug addiction, how many have a lack of parental guidance, a lack of education,” he said.
Judge Rice said he believes in supporting school levies because it costs less to educate people than to house them in prisons.
“What you spend on education pays you back tenfold,” he said.
Judge Rice said he thinks society has reduced the amount of drunken driving because of the money spent to educate people about it. It also has reduced the amount of smoking because of education.