Five former probation commissioners urge officials to stop testing parolees for marijuana
By Reuven Blau
New York Daily News
October 16, 2018
People on parole and probation should no longer be tested for marijuana if the drug is legalized in New York State, five former city probation commissioners said Tuesday.
The call for a more relaxed supervision comes as the number of parole violators ordered back to city jails has spiked over the past few years.
“Our public tenures and a growing body of research suggest that, in terms of community corrections, less is often more,” Vincent Schiraldi, a former city probation commissioner, testified before a state Assembly committee hearing on “allowing adult use of marijuana.”
The average number of parole violators tossed in city jails has gone up by 9.5% over the past four years, from 773 in 2014 to 847 in 2017, according to the Mayor’s Office of Criminal Justice.
That population is the only group of people behind bars that has gone up in recent years, records show.
But that’s never how parole and probation were intended when they were created as diversions from jail in the 1800s, Schiraldi testified at the lower Manhattan hearing.
“So, probation and parole have become much larger than originally intended, with burdensome conditions that serve as trip wires to incarceration rather than as alternatives,” Schiraldi said.
There’s no evidence that shows marijuana use “threatens public safety,” he added.
“Likewise there is no public safety justification for routine testing for marijuana for probation or parole,” he said.
New York currently allows people to use marijuana for medical purposes. State lawmakers are considering fully legalizing the drug for recreational use.
“Revocations for marijuana use made little sense before,” Schiraldi said, “and will make no sense once marijuana use is legal for the adult population.”
At the hearing, Schiraldi spoke on behalf of four other former probation commissioners, Martin Horn, Michael Jacobson, James Payne and Raul Russi.
EDITOR’S NOTE: The conditions for probation and parole universally prohibit the use of drugs, association with criminals and the violation of any laws.
This is crazy! I can think of a number of reasons why this is a terrible proposal. First and foremost though, probationers and parolees will have to associate with criminals in order to purchase pot since recreational use of marijuana has not been legalized in New York yet. And many of the probationers will not have enough money to buy pot. So how are they going to afford it? By committing thefts, burglaries and other crimes.
Even the kooks in California haven’t proposed this … yet.
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