Our traditional justice system has been inadequate to the task of breaking the cycle of substance abuse and crime. Four out of every five offenses are committed by someone with a drug or alcohol problem; and we just keep locking them up!
In just the past 20 years alone, state prison systems have added 1 million new cells to incarcerate the 2.3 million adults now behind bars in the U.S. That's far more than any other country on the globe with 1 out of every 100 adult Americans currently serving time.1 Approximately one-half of these individuals are addicted to drugs or alcohol2 and most do not pose a serious threat to public safety.
Prison for these individuals has accomplished little to stem the tide of crime or substance abuse. Upon their release from prison, two thirds of drug abusers commit a new crime3 and virtually all relapse quickly to drug abuse.4 And yet, despite these disappointing figures national expenditures on corrections well exceed $60 billion annually.5 On average, states spend $65,000 per bed, per year to build new prisons and $23,876 per bed, per year to operate them. Despite the staggering cost to incarcerate these individuals, most return to their communities without treatment, without jobs and without hope.
Given the abysmal outcomes of incarceration on addictive behavior, there's absolutely no justification for state governments to continue to waste tax dollars feeding a situation where generational recidivism is becoming the norm and parents, children and grandparents may find themselves locked up together.
Author Judge Dennis Challeen (ret.) said it best about sending the addicted to prison:
We want them to have self-worth
So we destroy their self-worth
We want them to be responsible
So we take away all responsibility
We want them to be positive and constructive
So we degrade them and make them useless
We want them to be trustworthy
So we put them where there is no trust
We want them to be non-violent
So we put them where violence is all around them
We want them to be kind and loving people
So we subject them to hatred and cruelty
We want them to quit being the tough guy
So we put them where the tough guy is respected
We want them quit hanging around losers
So we put all the losers in the state under one roof
We want them to quit exploiting us
So we put them where they exploit each other
We want them to take control of their lives, own problems and quit being a parasite on society
So we make them totally dependent on us
An Investment Beginning to be Realized
The verdict is in on Drug Courts. It has been proven beyond a reasonable doubt that Drug Courts work. Drug Courts significantly reduce drug abuse and crime and do so at less expense than any other justice strategy.
That is why the historic 1994 Biden Crime Bill authorized $1 billion for the Drug Court Discretionary Grant Program, administered by the Department of Justice Office of Justice Programs. The intent of the Biden Crime Bill at the time was to expand Drug Court funding to $200 million annually by the year 2000. Unfortunately the DOJ federal appropriation has averaged only $40 million and saw its lowest level in 2006 at a mere $10 million.
The Center for Substance Abuse Treatment within the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) has also supported Drug Courts through its discretionary funding. But it, too, is drastically under-funded with a meager $10 million a year available to enhance treatment services within Drug Court programs.
That is all changing. Earlier this year, Congress approved $64 million for Drug Courts; the highest federal appropriation for the program in its 20 year history. And President Obama has plans to take the ball further up field. In the Administration's budget for 2010, there is potentially $118 million for Drug Courts.
How Much Money Is Needed?
Drug Courts need $250 million per year for the next six years--essentially as was originally envisioned in the Crime Bill -- in order to put a Drug Court within reach of the 1.2 million adult offenders who need it and to truly begin to heal America's number one social problem...addiction.
What Will be the Return on the Investment?
A $250 million annual Federal investment would reap staggering savings, with an estimated annual return of as much as $840 million in net benefits from avoided criminal justice costs alone and another 2.2 billion in savings to our communities. A $250 million annual Federal investment would also substantially reduce the demand for illicit drugs and enable state and local governments to cease over-relying on expensive and ineffective prison sentences for nonviolent, addicted offenders.
If the past is any indication of the future, state and local governments can be expected to follow suit and leverage the Federal investment several-fold. In these down-turn economic times, there is no way to be certain whether the states will be able to continue to leverage Federal dollars at a 9:1 ratio as they have done in the past. But once states began to realize cost-offsets from criminal justice and prison expenditures, state funding can be reapportioned to expand and sustain Drug Courts. Assuming even a modest 5:1 state investment, a $250 million annual Federal investment could leverage as much as $1.25 billion in state funding.
Drug Courts are just good common CENTS! For more information about Drug Courts, go to www.allrise.org.
Here's a short PSA featuring Slash:
Just as we have learned that Drug Courts work, we are learning that cold turkey and tough love are not enough. Soem tools that help children and families are the Children's Progam Kit, Celebrating Families and Strengthening Families.
Don't forget the 12 Step programs, Faces and Voices of Recovery,
We know alot about the disease of alcohol and drug dependence, now we are learning more ways to solve it
You forgot one:
We take people who cannot accept their own responsibility for their actions and who will want revenge for what they see as someone else's fault
and
We put them in instutions of higher learning for crime so they can indulge that desire for revenge better when they do get out.
Our politicians are just as guilty of the first, so why aren't they treated as the second.
Anyone who has been to traffic court knows that money is the priority. Step up to the judge. Accept the deal and then pay the fine plus "court costs." I'm afraid this is another one of those areas where Capitalism is just inappropriate, and until the financial incentive is removed from those currently profiting we will not see too many effective reforms, even though Drug Courts may be a good start.
Then build treatment centers for those addicted to hard drugs instead of prisons.
How hard is that?
http://dingosix.wordpress.com/2009/08/02/freedom-and-justice-for-all-part-1/
As long as there PRISON PROFITEERS make money from people being thrown in jail,
then the supporters of the Republican NANNY STATE FOR THE RICH CORPORATE WELFARE QUEENS
will make sure more and more people are thrown into JAIL FOR PROFIT.
It is another failed war, as if it was ever declared a war anyways.
It is nonsense to continue throwing good money after bad.
I dont want my hard earned tax money to pay for it, or to support a government that would try to implement such a war. It is way past due time to put a stop to this insanity.
Will our representatives listen? That is another question indeed.
Virginia Sen. Jim Webb has authored a bill in the senate that creates a national criminal justice commission that will analyze the efficacy of the entire U.S. criminal justice system. Including the failures of the drug war, mass incarceration and marijuana criminalization.
The bill needs more co-sponsors in the U.S. Senate. It has 32 now.
S-714 http://mysite.verizon.net/aahpat/aandc/s714.htm
S-714 tally sheet http://mysite.verizon.net/aahpat/aandc/s-714_tally.htm
Write to your senators to co-sponsor S-714. Contact information is on the web wages.
There are other things happening in the congress. The House has struck from the law a prohibition against federal support for needle exchange. The crack/coke sentencing disparity is being addressed. The congressional prohibition against Washington, D.C. enacting its 1998 medical marijuana law was struck from House appropriations this year. There are bills now in the house to decriminalize pot, medical pot and industrial hemp at the federal level.
These actions need our support. Similar bills in past congresses have died due to lack of public support.
LOBBY your members of congress. Write letters to newspapers castigating your representatives for failure to support or just to inform them of your interest. LTE's educate politicians about the intensity of your interest while informing like-minded community members about what is happening in congress.
The USA has had the highest incarceration rates in the world for years.
We are supposed to be a nation of freedom and liberty?
It is more like this is a nation of liars, who are deluding themselves.
We live in a police state, and it is way past due that this situtation be corrected.
An entire for-profit industry has resurrected itself around these miserable policies.
It is time for America to stand up for our freedom and liberty once again!
The Swiss prescription program gets addicts to stop dealing drugs to new potential young addicts as part of the prescription program. This reduces exposure by young people to drug dealing of hard drugs. The result is a decline in new addicts.
Giving the addicts in the program social and medical services that enable them to reduce their dependence on street crime for economic sustenance reduces street economic crime for the whole community.
Google:
Swiss heroin model reporting benefits
www.swissinfo.org/eng/front/detail/Swiss_heroin_model_reporting_benefits.html?siteSect=105&sid=7032610&cKey=1157366472000
and:
Swiss Heroin Prescription Report 1997
www.cfdp.ca/switz.html
(The original initial scientific report of the program. A report that drug czar Barry McCaffrey slammed at the time.)