The Prison Explosion, Part 3c

TREATMENT KEEPS SOME OUT OF PRISON

Dutchess Stressing Rehabilitation Effort

It costs about $80 a day to keep a drug offender in a New York state prison.

It costs about $65 a day to keep a drug offender in the Intensive Treatment
Alternative Program run jointly by the Dutchess County mental health and
probation departments. The savings grow when someone is successfully
rehabilitated and doesn't continue to use drugs and commit crimes.

''Breaking the cycle of addiction and despair. Those are the savings you
don't see,'' said Dutchess County Commissioner of Mental Hygiene Kenneth M.
Glatt.

High prison costs and swollen prison populations have prompted development
or expansion of programs to treat drug offenders. Some treatment programs
are available for inmates. Other programs provide treatment instead of a
jail or prison sentence. Drug courts, which are being planned locally,
mandate treatment, often instead of a jail or prison sentence.

''I think the growing concern over drug policy is well grounded; so many
people are in prison because of drug laws around the country,'' said Rick
Culp, a professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York City.

The movement to expand rehabilitation is gaining attention across the
nation. In California, voters adopted a proposition that calls for sending
nonviolent minor drug offenders into treatment instead of prison. A measure
on the Massachusetts ballot would pay for drug treatment with the sale of
property seized during drug raids.

'Right direction'

Those involved in the criminal justice system said efforts are being made
in Dutchess County as well to utilize drug treatment and alternative to
incarceration programs.

''I know even the district attorney's office has, and that's an office that
you wouldn't think would support alternatives,'' said Lateef Islam,
director of the Family Partnership Center in the City of Poughkeepsie. The
center encompasses a number of agencies that provide education and social
services.

''Do we have more work to do?'' Islam said. ''We do. But we're heading in
the right direction.''

Consider:

- Approximately 22,000 inmates -- about a third of the New York state
prison population -- are in prisons because of a drug offense.

- The state spends nearly $650 million a year to incarcerate drug offenders
in state prisons, according to the New York State Commission on Drugs and
the Courts.

- It costs about $190 million a year to keep the 6,000 people in state
prison for drug possession locked up, according to The Correctional
Association of New York, a New York City-based advocacy organization.

- A three-phase drug treatment program now offered in New York state
prisons saves taxpayers about $32,000 per participant, according to a
report by the New York City-based Citizens Budget Commission.

''Rehab was the best experience of my life,'' said Darlene Brought, a
30-year-old from the Town of Poughkeepsie who was in Dutchess County Jail
in September for violating probation imposed as a result of a misdemeanor
drug possession conviction.

But as a result of a private drug rehabilitation program, she said she has
not used cocaine, crack or alcohol since Nov. 27, 1999.

'More humane'

Although research shows drug treatment doesn't work in every case, ''it's
more humane, less expensive and ... more likely to reduce crime than
imprisonment,'' said The Correctional Association of New York's executive
director, Robert Gangi.

Others agree.

''One of the things we know from research is that time immersed in rehab
equals success,'' said Gary Christensen, assistant correction administrator
at the Dutchess County Jail in Poughkeepsie.

Roughly 50 to 100 inmates at any given time participate in the Transitions
Program at the jail, Christensen said. It aims to help inmates think about
how they will behave and function once they return to their communities.

''It's voluntary,'' he said. ''(Inmates) would begin to focus on things
they need to change. ...Sometimes they're hooked up with rehab or treatment
on the outside and offered treatment and education inside.''

Casey Kennedy, 19, of Wappingers Falls, participates in the jail's
Transitions Program while serving a sentence in connection with
unauthorized use of a vehicle. He said it was abuse of drugs and alcohol
that landed him in jail.

''I wouldn't have stolen the car,'' had not alcohol been involved, he said.

''I heard this program's all about change. I have to change,'' Kennedy said.

Aside from whatever desire the participants have to get help, the threat of
incarceration is the carrot used to motivate offenders to participate and
to succeed in the county's Intensive Treatment Alternative Program.

Help on many fronts

Inmates work with drug counselors in groups or one on one and learn how to
manage anger and deal with health issues such as AIDS. They can attend
on-site classes to earn a high school equivalency diploma and develop
school and job plans. They also receive help with linking up with social
services and other agencies in the community.

''Not many counties in this state have the program to the extent that we
do,'' said Dutchess County District Attorney William Grady. ''The
alternative is state prison.''

Nineteen drug courts are operating throughout the state as a way to unclog
court dockets and mandate drug treatment for offenders. One in the City of
Kingston court in Ulster County could be functioning by January; another is
being planned in Poughkeepsie city court.

If judges, defenders and prosecutors agree, drug-court offenders can
receive treatment instead of prison. The ultimate price for not
participating or failure is jail or prison; the judges can impose graduated
sanctions when an offender relapses, one of the strengths of drug courts,
advocates say. It gives judges some discretion, which critics say mandatory
sentencing took away.

Strong drug laws are not inconsistent with treatment alternatives, said Grady.

''I think to soften our approach would be to potentially compromise what is
being done now in terms of being able to force these drug dependent
offenders into rehab programs...,'' he said.

Change for the better

Eleven years ago when he first started in the public defenders office,
rehabilitation was left up to the family, said Dutchess County senior
assistant public defender Thomas N.N. Angell.

''Now we have an elaborate system with many people involved in it," he
said. "That's a big change.''

Still, Angell's wish list includes getting more people from jail to
treatment, better communication between and among agencies so each knows
what the other is doing and a deeper understanding of substance abuse so
effective programs can be tailored.

''Most experts say addiction is behavioral, and has underlying issues about
why someone medicates themselves,'' Angell said.

''What everyone's realized is we're not going to solve the problem by
merely putting someone with a substance abuse problem into prison.''