Not prosecuting nonviolent drug offenses hasn’t cut down Kansas City’s homicide rate | Opinion

On what should police and prosecutors focus? Or, put another way: Who should law enforcement actually police?

The straightforward answer — enforce all the laws equally and fully prosecute all wrongdoing — isn’t practical, politically workable or even moral. It’s impractical because there aren’t enough police to do so. It’s politically unworkable because the taxes required to get to that level of policing are unacceptable. And it’s immoral because, frankly, police should focus more on Kansas City’s raging homicide issue than, say, jaywalking.

If we make choices about those things, who makes them? And what do those choices mean for our safety?

For example: In early July, 2021, Jackson County Prosecutor Jean Peters Baker wrote a letter to the Kansas City Board of Police Commissioners, asking them to stop sending her office nonviolent drug offenses and instead focus on violent crime.

The letter included: “Our analysis found that around 75% of drug cases had no discernible connection to violence. The vast majority of suspected drug users and dealers didn’t have guns at the time of arrest and a majority didn’t have prior violent convictions.” The letter also makes the point that with limited resources, the prosecutor’s office will focus “more keenly” on violence. (The office will take nonviolent cases where there is a documented “nexus to violence” or community concerns about a dangerous situation such as a drug house.)

Since then, the Kansas City Police Department has recorded more than 460 homicides. Jackson County saw a 23% increase in drug overdoses from 2021 to 2022, totaling 553 for both years. While 2023 overdose data isn’t yet available, it’s likely those numbers are up again.

Maybe it’s time to start prosecuting nonviolent drug offenses.

In a 2018 essay for City Journal , Rafael Mangual cited a Chicago police study which found, “Over 87 percent of suspects arrested for murder that year had prior arrest histories.” Mangual’s own analysis “confirm that the most serious crimes are mostly committed by repeat offenders whom the criminal-justice system has failed to obstruct.”

A 2018 story in The Baltimore Sun cited police data in concluding, “The average homicide suspect, meanwhile, had 9 previous arrests on his record. About 70 percent had drug arrests, and nearly half had been arrested for a violent crime.”

We can’t be sure how many homicide offenders in Kansas City have nonviolent drug convictions. Chicago and Baltimore data suggest it may be substantial.

In response to Baker, the Platte and Clay county prosecutors issued their own letter to the KCPD. They asserted: “The illicit drug trade and violence go hand-in-hand. For this reason, to us, it only makes sense to do everything we can to intervene before violence occurs, not only after.” They asked the KCPD to continue referring drug cases to their offices.

Prosecutors point to the success of drug treatment courts, citing a 2019 study that concluded drug courts “are effective in reducing recidivism and drug use.” Because only nonviolent offenders are eligible to participate in drug courts, Jackson County is missing an opportunity to intervene. Leaving offenders to their own devices risks worse outcomes later.

Being a county prosecutor is a tough job. On top of the usual stresses of protecting us from ourselves, state and county legislatures have made their jobs more difficult by lowering standards for self-defense and failing to provide adequate jail cells. Prosecutors need the benefit of the doubt in specific cases.

But the Jackson County prosecutor’s policy of not pursuing nonviolent drug offenses needs to end.

The policy denies prosecutors prior conduct information they need to make important decisions, obscures defendants’ true criminal past, and pretends that large swaths of crime our communities struggle under just don’t exist.

Drug possession in Missouri is and always has been a felony, the only exception being possession of less than 35 grams of marijuana. Prosecutors don’t need to lock those offenders up, but they should make use of diversion programs such as drug courts. Not only can these actually help those involved, but it would help future prosecutors and judges understand what they are dealing with should the person re-offend.

Patrick Tuohey is co-founder of Better Cities Project, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit focused on municipal policy solutions, and a senior fellow at the Show-Me Institute, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit dedicated to Missouri state policy work.