'Did we go to far?' County prosecutors seek tougher penalties for drug dealers

A call for stiffer penalties comes just two years after lawmakers significantly reduced drug sentences in hopes of shrinking the prison population.

But it also comes as Indiana faces a record number of deaths linked to heroin and opiate use - they've more than tripled in the past decade - and fights a continuing problem with methamphetamine.

“We need to ask the question, 'Did we go too far?'” said David Powell, head of the Indiana Prosecuting Attorneys Council.

He plans to put the question to a legislative committee charged with looking at the impact of allowing the distribution of clean needles to intravenous drug users.

The needle-exchange law was prompted by an HIV outbreak in rural Scott County among drug users injecting the opiate-based painkiller Opana. Since the law's passage, 19 counties plagued by opiate abuse have initiated efforts to begin needle-exchanges to ward off HIV and stop the spread of Hepatitis C.

The Interim Committee on Public Health, scheduled to meet Monday, will also look at a sentencing reform law that reduced drug penalties across the board in order to shrink prison populations and costs.

Powell said local prosecutors are most concerned about changes to drug-dealing penalties that went into effect with sentencing reform on July 1, 2014.

Before the law kicked in, someone convicted of dealing heroin, cocaine, methamphetamine or prescription painkillers faced a minimum of six years in prison. With the new law, that minimum sentence fell to one year.

Before sentencing reform, someone convicted of dealing any of those drugs to a minor faced a mandatory minimum of 20 years in prison. The minimum term now is two years. The mandatory piece is gone, too; judges have the discretion to suspend sentences.

Gone, too, are the toughest penalties for those caught selling drugs near schools and public housing projects.

“For the worst of the worst dealers, we went too far,” Powell said.

He said prosecutors aren’t advocating for a return to old penalty levels. But they want to see sentences toughened.

He also hopes that lawmakers will review some of the new drug-possession penalties, reducing felonies to misdemeanors, to see if they enable addicts to duck treatment.

Previously judges could threaten jail or prison time to compel addicts into drug treatment.

“Addicts are trapped in their addictions,” said Powell. “It can take the threat of jail or prison to force some people to seek treatment.”

The early impact of sentencing reform is already evident, said Powell. According to the Indiana Judicial Center, the number of drug-crime offenders sentenced and serving time is down nearly 40 percent in the first six months of the relaxed penalties, which suggests a larger number of suspended sentences.

State Sen. Jim Merritt, R-Indianapolis, a strong advocate of emphasizing treatment over incarceration for addicts, said he sticks by his support for reduced penalties for drug possession

But reduced penalties for dealing were a step too far, he said.

“We need to toughen the penalties on drug dealer and traffickers,” he said. “They’re poisoning our communities.”

Lawmakers may be willing to revisit drug penalties next year, he said, though some may argue they need more time to assess the impact of sentencing reform.

Larry Landis, head of the Indiana Public Defender Council, said he’ll argue for legislators to hold off changing the penalties. He’ll instead advocate for raising the amount of money going into treatment programs, in hopes of giving those alternatives a chance to work.

“We’ve tried incarceration for 40 years in the war on drugs, and it’s failed,” he said. “We know what doesn’t work.”