The War on Drugs still taking its toll

This wasn't supposed to happen here

[Reprinted from Issues & Views August 23, 2004]

One keeps asking how it is possible that such travesties of justice continue to go on and on.

Paul Goseland managed a successful tropical plant business in Wichita, Kansas. As a drug user, he was found in possession of a small amount of cocaine and was given probation. Some years later, he again was convicted for possessing cocaine for his personal use, and was placed on probation. One, two -- but then came three. The same charge, the same "crime," and the same conviction, but this time the world turned upside down. This time Paul Goseland was sentenced to life in prison.

She became the only woman in Kansas to be given a life sentence for drug possession. One, two, three for Gloria VanWinkle too. Even the prosecutor, a breed not known for excessive compassion, deemed her case "tragic." VanWinkle had the misfortune of being a convenient tool in the plea bargain of a convicted felon, who then set her up for a sting operation.

Details don't matter in the world of Three Strikes and Mandatory Minimum sentences -- nor does the stable life left behind, nor the intact family and responsibilities. Although Goseland and VanWinkle in the end received some degree of mercy, thousands like them across the country are not so lucky.

Goseland's and VanWinkle's "luck" took the form of laws that were altered in 1993 and again in 2003, and the efforts of Kansas Secretary of Corrections, Roger Werholtz, who requested the court to reduce both sentences. As reported in the Summer 2004 newsletter of Families Against Mandatory Minimums (FAMM), Werholtz's request was based on a repealed statute.

In May, VanWinkle was released from prison after being forced to spend 12 years away from her very young children. Goseland's life sentence was reduced to 20 years, making him eligible for parole in September of this year, instead of 2009.

How much longer will the futile, destructive "War on Drugs" fill prisons with people like Goseland and VanWinkle, destroying families that rarely survive a parent's incarceration, especially the loss of a mother?

Copyright © 2010 Issues & Views