You asked how many arrests and convictions for marijuana possession were made in 2005 and the cost of detentions resulting from these prosecutions.

SUMMARY

Neither the Judicial Department nor the Department of Public Safety (DPS) currently maintains information on the number of people arrested or imprisoned for marijuana possession in Connecticut in 2005.

The most recent statistics we were able to find are for 2002.

According to the Uniform Crime Reports (UCR) County Data, which is maintained by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), there were 5,104 arrests for marijuana possession and 587 arrests for marijuana sales in Connecticut in 2002. But a marijuana legalization advocacy group, The National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML), used the same data set to derive higher totals for both crimes. According to NORML, there were 6,379 arrests for marijuana possession in 2002 and 756 for marijuana sales. It is not clear why the NORML data is different from the UCR data.

The Department of Correction's (DOC) website states that the daily cost of incarceration is $76. However, according to Sarah Packard, an analyst at the Office of Fiscal Analysis, the most comprehensive figure for the daily cost of incarceration is $96 per inmate. The Comptroller's Office calculated this amount, which includes fringe benefits for DOC employees and all per diem expenditures for Fiscal Year 2003.

Under state law, marijuana possession can be either a misdemeanor or a felony, depending on the circumstances of the arrest, including the amount of the drug, where the crime takes place, the offender's age, and whether the criminal act was a first or repeat offense. Given the range of variables, it is difficult to determine what the full cost of imprisoning a typical marijuana offender would be.

ARRESTS AND CONVICTIONS FOR MARIJUANA POSSESSION

Uniform Crime Reports County Data

Agencies and states participating in the UCR program submit crime data to the FBI every month. The UCR County Data tracks 42 offenses, including sale and possession of marijuana.

In 2002, the UCR County Data showed 5,104 arrests for marijuana possession, and 587 arrests for the sale or manufacture of that drug in Connecticut (available at http://fisher.lib.virginia.edu/collections/stats/crime/index.html).

The chart below provides arrest data for marijuana sale and possession in Connecticut between 1998 and 2002.

Judicial Branch

The Judicial Branch tracks offenses by statute number. Unfortunately, the subsections in the statutes dealing with the possession of marijuana include other illegal narcotics. To distinguish cases involving a particular drug, we would have to manually sort through every case on record. However, these statistics provide a useful estimate of the volume of arrests and convictions for marijuana offenses.

Three Connecticut statutes criminalize and set penalties for the possession of marijuana. The penalties vary depending on the possessor's state of mind and the quantity of the drug.

CGS § 21a-278(b) makes it illegal for a non-drug dependent person to possess with intent to sell any narcotic substance, hallucinogenic substance, amphetamine-type substance, or one kilogram or more of marijuana. According to the Judicial Branch, there were 1,885 arrests under this statute in 2005.

CGS § 21a-279(b) makes it illegal to possess or control a dangerous hallucinogen or more than four ounces of marijuana. According to the Judicial Branch, there were 499 arrests under this statute in 2005.

CGS § 21a-279(c) makes it illegal to possess or control “any quantity of any controlled substance other than a narcotic substance” or “a hallucinogenic substance other than marijuana,” or less than four ounces of marijuana. According to the Judicial Branch, there were about 9,724 arrests under this statute in 2005.

Table 1 below indicates the procedural outcomes of these arrests.

Table 1: Procedural Outcome of Criminal Offenses 2005

Department of Public Safety

DPS participates in the Connecticut UCR Program, which reports local crime data to the FBI. It has offense and arrest data up to 2003. But its current reports do not provide specific data for arrests or convictions for marijuana possession.

According to the 2003 report, there were 17,981 arrests for “drug abuse violations,” defined as “offenses relating to narcotic drugs, such as unlawful possession, sale, use, growing and manufacturing of narcotic drugs.”

In past years, DPS released data on total arrests for marijuana sales and possession between 1995 and 1997 (OLR Report 99-R-0384). It indicated that 8,285 people were arrested for marijuana crimes in 1997; 7,996 in 1996; and 7,839 in 1995.

NORML

NORML is a nonprofit, public interest lobby that supports the removal of all criminal penalties for marijuana possession by adults. NORML publishes an almanac of state marijuana statistics, using UCR data.

In 2002, NORML reports that there were 7,135 arrests related to marijuana in Connecticut. Of this total, 6,379 arrests were for “possession,” and 756 arrests were for “sales” [available at http://www.norml.org/pdf_files/state_arrests_2004/NORML_CT_Marijuana_Arrests.pdf]. NORML reports that arrests for possession constituted 35.56% of all drug arrests in 2002, and 4.18% of all arrests that year. It also found that arrests for sales constituted 4.21% of all drug arrests in 2002, and 0.5% of all arrests that year.

It is unclear why these numbers do not agree with the current figures on the UCR County Data's website. Perhaps the difference is due to NORML's complicated methodology for calculating arrest data, which involves other data sets, such as the U.S. Census 2000.

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