Controlling Crime: Strategies and Tradeoffs

John J. Donohue, Stanford Law School

Abstract

The United States stands out among developed nations for both its extremely punitive illegal drug policy and the high percentages of its population that have consumed banned substances—particularly marijuana and cocaine. The war against the millions of Americans who use and sell these drugs has cost taxpayers billions of dollars each year and contributed substantially to America’s globally unmatched incarceration rate (Walmsley 2009). Yet it has failed to displace America from among the world leaders in use rates for illegal drugs, even if escalating punitiveness may have contributed to declines in US drug consumption from its peaks in the late 1070s and 1980s.