Memphis Commercial Appeal: Drug-free school zones costly, ineffective
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A policy that seeks to sanitize environments where children are present from the influence of drugs seems sensible on its face, but only so long as it is narrowly tailored to serve that particular purpose.
Otherwise, broadly applied, the policy becomes ineffective and costly. According to the analysis of the Tennessee General Assembly Fiscal Review Committee, incarcerating drug-free zone inmates is estimated at $3,057,400 per year.
These high costs could be justified if mandatory punishments were proven methods of reducing crime; however, decades of research have proven the opposite. Research has found that it is the certainty of being caught, not the severity of the punishment, that deters future crime.