North Texas’ lengthy meth sentences cost taxpayers millions and fail to curb smuggling

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Harsh — and some say unjust — federal penalties for methamphetamine crimes exact more than just human loss. They also place a financial burden on taxpayers.

Meth is now the number one reason people are locked up in federal prisons.

According to the Federal Bureau of Prisons, more people are in federal prison for drug offenses – about 47% – than for any other crime. And more people are in prison for meth than for any other drug.

According to the Bureau of Prisons, as of January 2024, meth offenders made up 52.5% of all drug trafficking offenders in federal prisons. That corresponds to more than 34,000 inmates.

According to the Bureau of Prisons, the average annual cost of incarcerating a federal inmate is about $40,000. So the burden on taxpayers to house meth inmates is about $1.4 billion per year.

And it’s growing.

According to the Bureau of Prisons, the total federal prison population has declined 28% since 2013. However, this is not the case with meth offenders.

According to the U.S. Sentencing Commission, the number of meth offenders sentenced to federal prison increased by 80% over the same ten-year period.

“The tragedy is that we get nothing in return (the prison costs),” said Mark Osler, a former federal prosecutor and law professor at the University of St. Thomas in Minnesota.

He noted that people are still smuggling and using meth in large numbers. “As long as there is demand, there will be supply.”

Arguably no one contributes more to the cost of housing federal meth inmates than federal prosecutors and judges in North Texas.

A Dallas Morning News Analysis of federal drug sentencing data shows that from October 2013 to September 2023, the federal judicial district for Dallas imposed the highest average meth sentences in the country.

The average sentence in the Northern District of Texas, which includes Dallas, is more than 10 years. The average sentence in the Eastern District, which includes Denton and Collin counties, is exactly 10 years. The national median is 6 years.

The defense for long meth sentences

Proponents of long prison sentences typically argue that they are justified because of the dangers of meth and the need for deterrent punishment.

But critics — including former federal prosecutors and sitting and former judges — argue that the data suggests that none of these arguments are particularly strong. On the one hand, far more people are dying from fentanyl and other opioids, which have lower penalties than from meth. On the other hand, the number of meth convictions has only increased – and with it the flow of meth from Mexico to the USA.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection seized about 11,000 pounds of meth in 2013. A decade later, the agency seized 140,000 pounds of the drug at the Southwest border, the Sentencing Commission said in its June 2024 Meth report.

In fiscal year 2022, 35.5% of offenders convicted of meth trafficking were in the lowest crime category, the Sentencing Commission found in its June 2024 report. And more than 60% were in the lower crime categories.

In the Northern District of Texas, 27% of meth offenders who received sentences of more than 20 years had a criminal record that judges judged had little or no criminal history.

Long prison sentences, higher costs

Although meth offenders are unlikely to be career criminals, some believe they are more expensive. Because their prison sentences are disproportionately long, the costs of providing food, medical care and other services add up.

Health care costs are a particular problem because these long prison sentences often keep meth inmates incarcerated well into old age, when medical care can be particularly costly to taxpayers.

Seth Kretzer, a Houston attorney, said he was at the Federal Medical Center in Fort Worth, which houses sick and elderly inmates.

The cost of financing their health care is exorbitant, he said.

“They are waiting to die,” he said.

Conservatives, he said, should oppose long prison sentences for nonviolent drug offenders in a war that can never be won.

Traditionally, conservative politicians have called for stricter treatment of drug-related crime.

But some conservatives are now reconsidering that position, partly because of costs.

The Austin-based conservative criminal justice reform group Right on Crime is an affiliate of the Texas Public Policy Foundation. She opposes mandatory minimum sentences for non-violent drug offenders.

The group, which includes conservative politicians, commentators and law enforcement officials, says conservatives believe in smart, effective use of taxpayer money and limited government.

“Over-criminalization of nonviolent drug offenders violates these principles,” said Rachel Wright, national policy director for Right On Crime. She made particular reference to the cost of housing an inmate.

“This is a misuse of funds for individuals who poorly manage drug addiction and mental health issues but often do not pose an imminent threat to public safety,” Wright said. “We must keep dangerous criminals off the streets and ensure taxpayers’ money is not wasted on incarcerating non-dangerous offenders.”

Safety and crowding concerns

Some argue that long-term incarceration of nonviolent meth inmates not only wastes taxpayer dollars, but also wastes valuable space in an already overburdened federal prison system.

The Bureau of Prisons estimates that the growing prison population will result in overcapacity of 10% in fiscal year 2024. The high-security facilities are 23% full, the office reported.

A general report from the Inspector General of the Ministry of Justice said that as of September 2022, about 21% of prison guard positions were vacant. The Justice Department said in its 2024 budget request that the Department of Corrections is struggling with staffing shortages that are impacting the care and safety of inmates.

Brandy Moore White, president of a union for federal law enforcement officers, told a Senate subcommittee in February that the shortage was also affecting staff safety.

“Staffing levels at the Bureau of Prisons have reached alarming levels,” she said. “The Bureau of Prisons’ staffing levels have gone from a crisis to a catastrophe with real human consequences.”

But even if one is less sympathetic to the safety concerns of prison inmates or those who choose to work in prisons, there is still that cost.

The Bureau of Prisons budget is $9 billion.

The estimated $1.4 billion spent just housing meth offenders for one year would have been enough to fund Dallas County government’s overall budget in 2022.

“We spend a lot of money on incarceration, and what do we get in return?” Osler said. “There is still as much meth as ever. And yet we always do the same thing.”