DRUG COUNSELING OFFERED IN U.S. PRISONS

NEW YORK - About 40% of correctional facilities in
the United States offer substance abuse treatment as a way to help
reduce crime once prisoners are released, a government survey reveals.

And increasing the amount of drug treatment available to prisoners may
not be a bad idea -- about half of the inmates in state and federal
prisons reported using drugs or alcohol while committing their crime
and about 17% said they committed their crime to obtain money for
drugs, according to the US Department of Justice.

``Our dominant approach of primarily incarcerating drug offenders has
been a failed social policy,'' said Barry McCaffrey, director of the
White House Office of National Drug Control Policy, in a statement
issued by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services
Administration (SAMHSA). ``We're now replacing it with a common sense
approach of treatment and testing combined with law
enforcement.''

Overall, about 10% of the 1.6 million inmates who had access to
treatment participated in some form of substance abuse counseling in
1997, according to the survey on substance abuse treatment in the
nations adult and juvenile correctional facilities. The survey found
that 50% to 80% of people who are arrested test positive for drugs,
compared with 6% of people in the general population who used drugs in
the last month.

The findings are based on a 1997 survey conducted by SAMHSA and the US
Department of Justice of 7,564 of the nation's adult and juvenile
correctional facilities.

``It is clearly in the public interest for offenders with substance
abuse problems to receive appropriate treatment both in prison or jail
and in the community after release,'' said SAMHSA Administrator Dr.
Nelba Chavez in a statement.

The majority of federal and state prisons, jails and juvenile
facilities surveyed provided individual counseling. Many facilities
provided group counseling, but only a small percentage offered family
counseling.

SAMHSA, a US Department of Health and Human Services agency, has
proposed earmarking $10 million in 2001 to provide substance abuse
counseling and mental health services to inmates returning to the
community. The funds would augment a $60 million initiative by the US
Department of Justice to address the safety concerns of these
communities and lower rates of crime by former inmates.