The result has been a steady influx of prisoners into a correctional system that's strained far beyond its limits, but the crystal meth problem is as bad as ever — or worse.

One way the state got tough was to require mandatory jail and prison terms for ice offenses.

Lawmakers approved the sentencing law in 1996, following an alarming series of violent incidents involving suspects high on the drug, including the shooting of a police officer and a shooting in a hospital emergency room.

The measure requires that anyone caught with even a tiny amount of crystal meth be locked up for 30 days to 2 1/2 years, and anyone caught selling one-eighth of an ounce or more faces an automatic 10-year sentence.

The changes gave prosecutors powerful tools to get ice offenders off the street, and echoed the methods some other states used to attack drug problems.

But although passing the law didn't cost anything, paying for the incarceration has become a growing expense, and many agree its effectiveness has been limited.

"The thought behind this whole thing was that if people know they're going to get mandatory jail time for using, it will deter them and therefore solve the drug problem. Clearly, that strategy has failed to work, but the law is still in place," state Public Defender John Tonaki said.

"If what law enforcement says is true, that the drug problem has increased exponentially, obviously the mandatory penalties for possession of crystal meth are not having a deterrent effect on anyone."

Restructured penalties

The sentencing law is not solely responsible for Hawai'i's growing prison population, and the exact impact is virtually impossible to quantify. Many defendants would likely have been sentenced to some amount of jail or prison time even if there were no mandatory term; some of those who werenât imprisoned would likely have been locked up later for new crimes.

But over the past few years, 17 states rolled back mandatory minimum sentences or restructured other penalties that had been meant to get tough on low-level or nonviolent offenders, especially those convicted of drug offenses.

The changes were often driven by a mix of fiscal conservatives who didn't want to raise taxes to pay for more prisons, and by others seeking alternatives to incarceration.

"In the past few years, there has been a major shift in public opinion and political will away from criminal justice policies that do not distinguish between offenders and waste precious tax resources on incarcerating too many low-level, nonviolent lawbreakers," said Laura Sager, director of Families Against Mandatory Minimums, a group that advocates giving more sentencing discretion to judges.

In Hawai'i, a 2002 law that requires probation and treatment for some first-time drug offenders now overrules mandatory sentences in ice-possession cases. But for others, prosecutors have the power to specify whether a drug offense should highlight crystal meth — possibly drawing a mandatory sentence — or to pursue a generic drug charge.

Discretion as a tool

Honolulu Prosecutor Peter Carlisle said that discretion can be a powerful tool to persuade defendants to enter Drug Court and abide by its close supervision. The tactic was working well before the new treatment law, known as Act 161, went into effect, he said.

"We were willing to strike meth language rather than seeking a mandatory for people who were genuinely first time nonviolent offenders who hadn't been previously given treatment regimens," he said. "If you use that as a hammer to do that it's a very effective one. But for some amounts of crystal methamphetamine, you ought to go to jail in a heartbeat."

Others say giving prosecutors the discretion to file charges that carry automatic sentences distorts the judicial process.

"The problem with mandatory anything is that it gives one of the adversaries in an adversarial process all the power," said Deputy Public Defender Susan Arnett, who supervises felony trials. "In an adversarial process, it really seems like the higher power, the neutral power, which is the court, should be the one with the discretion. Not one of the adversaries."

And although the meth law is used to funnel offenders into Drug Court, it doesn't always because such forums are relatively new, have limited capacity and arenât set up equally across the state.

Through Drug Court, a judge may dismiss a charge or set aside a sentence if the offender completes a treatment program and complies with other requirements.

On O'ahu, 622 clients have been admitted to Drug Court since 1996, and 373 have graduated. More than 100 are enrolled on O'ahu, and about 100 more are participating in newer Drug Courts on Neighbor Islands.

When a Drug Court was set up on Maui, prosecutors there sometimes told co-defendants that only one of them would be allowed into the program, and must testify against the other to qualify, Arnett said.

"That was clearly not what Drug Court was set up to do, to be used in that manner," she said. "But that's the nature of those things. Prosecutors prosecute ... that's one of the problems with putting all the discretion in their hands. Because they're not there to do what's best for a defendant. They're there to prosecute."