DRUGS, NOT VIOLENCE, ARE THE FUEL FOR PRISON GROWTH

For years, politicians of both parties have been promising to sweep the
streets of violent criminals and lock them away in Virginia's burgeoning
prison system.

``Violent thugs are getting the message: Virginia is not the place to earn
a living as a criminal predator, preying on innocent, law-abiding
citizens,'' then-Gov. George Allen declared in 1995.

But Virginia's prison population has been swollen by people incarcerated
for nonviolent crimes -- especially drug offenders.

In the early 1980s, about 10 percent of Virginians being put in state
prisons were drug offenders. By the 1990s, that figure had climbed to 25
percent.

In federal prisons today, drug defendants make up 60 percent of the inmate
population. Violent offenders comprise just 12 percent.

U.S. drug czar Barry McCaffrey has called the mushrooming population of
imprisoned drug offenders ``America's internal gulag.''

And there is a high human toll, critics say.

``They're tearing families apart with their drug war,'' said Lennice Werth
of Crewe, Va., director of the drug-law reform group Virginians Against
Drug Violence. ``The war on drugs amounts to a war on families and children.''

Allen and other Virginia politicians who waged and now defend the drug war
say their target is dealers, not users.

Sen. Kenneth W. Stolle, R-Virginia Beach, chairman of the Virginia State
Crime Commission, declared flatly in an interview: ``Nobody goes into our
state prison system for possession of drugs. It doesn't happen.''

Department of Corrections records tell a different story.

Of all the drug offenders admitted to state prisons in fiscal year 1998,
two out of three were for possession, or possession with intent to
distribute. Under Virginia law, possession with intent to distribute
carries the same penalties as actual distribution.

More than one in 10 of all those admitted to prison in 1998 -- from
burglars to murderers -- were locked up for possession of cocaine.

Richard P. Kern, director of the Virginia Criminal Sentencing Commission,
said most drug offenders imprisoned for simple possession have prior felony
convictions.

Allen, the architect of Virginia's latest wave of prison construction,
defended the state's tough anti-drug stance in an interview. In fact, he
said, ``I think we ought to have even harsher penalties for drug dealers.''

``The problem of drugs is something that I think we have to continue
fighting and not just throw up our hands and say, `Oh, gosh, this is
hopeless,' '' Allen said. ``I think what we're missing is leadership and
efforts at a national level, because this is not just a state issue.''

Allen's not the only one pushing for harsher drug penalties. His successor,
Gov. Jim Gilmore, wants to spend an added $41.5 million to crack down on
drug abuse, including tougher sentences for many offenders.

``Illegal drugs are penetrating our communities and threatening our
children more and more, year after year,'' Gilmore said in announcing the
new initiative last fall. ``. . . Illegal drugs today become Public Enemy
No. 1.''

Prosecution Hasn't Affected Drug Use

Drug prosecutions have been underwritten by federal financial incentives.
Over the past 10 years, Virginia localities have received more than $100
million in federal drug-control grants.

Yet illicit drug use, according to national surveys, has remained more or
less constant for a decade. The surveys suggest that the war on drugs, the
principal factor behind the prison boom, isn't working.

``The Virginia legislature is among the many groups of folks in this
country who think that if you punish people enough, they'll stop doing the
stuff that you don't want them to do,'' said June Gertig, a Herndon, Va.,
lawyer whose son was a teenage drug addict. ``But with addiction, it's not
like that. Punishment doesn't stop the addiction. You've got to get
underneath the addiction and treat it.''

In 1998, according to the National Household Survey on Drug Abuse produced
annually by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 10.6 percent
of Americans reported using an illicit drug in the past year. That number
has hovered steadily between 10 and 11 percent since 1991.

State-by-state estimates produced by HHS indicate that drug use in Virginia
mirrors the national pattern.

The most popular illegal drug, by far, is marijuana. With an estimated
annual production value of $197 million, it has surpassed tobacco as
Virginia's leading cash crop, according to the National Organization for
Reform of Marijuana Laws. Yet, few Virginians are imprisoned on marijuana
charges today.

Ironically, cocaine, the drug for which Virginians are most frequently
prosecuted, is used by only a tiny minority of the population -- 1.7
percent, according to the same 1998 survey.

Treatment May Be More Effective Route

Whatever the drug, a large body of research indicates that incarceration is
a grossly expensive and ineffective method of discouraging use.

Research by Rand, a Washington think tank, has found that $1 million spent
on drug treatment would reduce serious crime 15 times more than the same
amount of money spent on expanding mandatory prison terms.

Arizona, the first state to begin treating all its nonviolent drug
offenders rather than locking them up, reported last spring that the new
approach saved more than $2.5 million in the first year and is likely to
reap greater savings in the future. Of 2,622 drug users diverted into
probation and treatment, the report said, 77.5 percent subsequently tested
free of drugs.

Ron Angelone, Virginia's corrections director, is fond of telling those who
advocate rehabilitating inmates: ``We can't rehabilitate anybody; they have
to rehabilitate themselves.''

``Of course, we all agree with that,'' said Jean Auldridge, director of
Virginia CURE (Citizens United for the Rehabilitation of Errants). ``But we
believe they should have the tools provided, and the opportunity, so
they'll be ready to come out and resume their lives.''

``We need to do two things,'' Auldridge said. ``One is to have more
treatment programs available. And we need post-release assistance for the
transition back into society.''

There is little emphasis on drug treatment in Virginia prisons. It has been
estimated that as many as 80 percent of state prisoners are drug abusers,
but only 8 percent of Virginia inmates are in drug treatment programs,
according to the 1998 Corrections Yearbook.

Probation, the most common alternative to incarceration, is relatively rare
in Virginia. Only five states have lower probation rates.

In recent years, the state has begun developing other alternatives to
imprisonment such as detention centers, diversion centers and boot camps.
But the number of people served is modest: There were 824 offenders
enrolled in those three programs statewide as of June 30, 1999, and another
223 on the waiting lists. The Senate Finance Committee staff predicts they
will reduce prison-space demand by 1,300 beds -- about 4 percent of capacity.

Opportunities for education and vocational training are also skimpy. In a
series of recent interviews, inmates told of waiting up to two years just
to get into a G.E.D. class.

``We're doing little or nothing to rehabilitate these people,'' said Sen.
Richard J. Holland, D-Isle of Wight. ``What we're doing is warehousing them.''

Prisoners Say System Ignores Them

Stories of Virginia's imprisoned drug offenders are suffused with seething
resentment, cynicism and despair.

Russell Stone, 37, is serving 15 years for the sale of marijuana and
cocaine and possession of LSD in Virginia Beach and Wytheville.

He has recently been transferred to Western Tidewater Regional Jail in
Suffolk from Bland Correctional Center, a complex of three-story, flat-top
brick buildings, guard towers and razor-wire fences nestled amid the
verdant mountains of Bland County in southwest Virginia.

Stone says drugs were an escape from pain. He spent much of his childhood
in a series of orphanages and foster homes, a victim of physical, emotional
and sexual abuse.

He has been turned down for parole seven times. He will be due for
mandatory release in April after having spent more than nine years behind bars.

It has been largely wasted time, in Stone's view. He has little to show for
it beyond a G.E.D. and a basic life-skills class. He has had virtually no
drug treatment.

``For somebody who's got a drug problem, locking 'em up and keeping 'em
locked up for years and years doesn't help much,'' he said in an interview.

``The system has failed so many. The politicians all say, `I'm going to
lock 'em all up.' They're not telling people about all the guys they're
going to let go who will be more hostile, more bitter, more aggressive and
will commit more serious crimes when they get out because of the way they
were treated in here.''

Stone has contracted hepatitis C, a potentially deadly disease that is
rampant in the prison system, and has been unable to get treatment for it.

Except for a sister in Virginia Beach, all of his close relatives have died
since he has been incarcerated.

Now that his release date is near, he is frightened of what lies ahead.

He'll get $25 and a bus ticket, and he's on his own. The system provides no
aftercare -- no one to help him find a job or a place to live, no one to
turn to when he is overwhelmed by the challenges of readjustment.

``It's scary,'' he said. ``Every day I walk around and think: Who will help
me lay the right foundation? Who's going to be there when I get off that
Greyhound bus in Tidewater? I'll be 38, but I'll be like a kid, coming out
with so many needs, so many wants, so many desires.''

Drugs Sending More Women To Prison

The drug-war dragnet is sweeping more and more women into prison.

The rate of growth in female admissions is twice the rate for males. There
were 1,035 women imprisoned in fiscal year 1998, which was 11.7 percent of
admissions -- up from 9.2 percent in 1990.

Belinda Adams, 35, is at the Virginia Correctional Center for Women, a
campus-like complex in the rolling hills of Goochland County west of
Richmond. She is doing 5 3/4 years for possession of cocaine, forgery and
other charges -- all related to a crack cocaine addiction.

Like Stone, she came from a dysfunctional family and was abused as a child.
By her mid-teens, she said, ``I started looking for an external solution to
an internal problem.''

Since she has been locked up, she has lost her mother to suicide. She has a
3-year-old son who is being raised by a family friend.

``I feel I have a pretty large sentence for a nonviolent crime,'' Adams said.

``Drug abuse is an illness,'' she said. ``I'm not trying to justify my
crimes in any way, but I feel there must be a better way to give people the
help they need.''

Treatment Is Hard When Drugs Are Plentiful

For most drug prisoners, treatment for their addiction remains a distant goal.

Terry Swinson, 38, is doing 25 years at Keen Mountain Correctional Center
in Buchanan County for selling $40 worth of crack cocaine -- less than 1
gram. He was convicted in Suffolk in 1994.

The only program available to him is a G.E.D. class, and he doesn't need
that: He's already a high school graduate. He is on a waiting list for a
substance abuse class, but there's no such class offered at Keen Mountain.

Another factor working against rehabilitation of drug offenders, say some
inmates, is the prevalence of illegal drugs in prison.

``It's kind of hard to tell a man to stop doing drugs when the drug
dealer's his next-door neighbor,'' said Geoff Faulkner, 26, of Hopewell,
who is doing 9 1/2 years at Nottoway Correctional Center for cocaine
possession, forgery and related charges.

Drugs are ``very common'' in prison, said Faulkner, who has been unable to
get into a drug treatment program.

Joseph Lee Garrett, 29, of Fredericksburg, who is doing 52 years on
marijuana and LSD conspiracy charges at Wallens Ridge State Prison, said
getting drugs in prison is ``as easy as in the free world.''

Garrett said he has been waiting eight years to get into a drug treatment
program.

Creativity Often Pays Off

Sometimes, inmates find a way to get what they need in spite of the system.

Damian Blakley, 20, is doing 10 years for cocaine possession with intent to
distribute. He was convicted in Norfolk at age 16.

Once in prison, Blakley established a clean record that earned him a Level
1 security classification, the one reserved for the lowest-risk inmates.
That got him sent to the Halifax Correctional Unit, a low-security field
unit in Southside Virginia that puts road gangs to work on state highways.

But there was a downside. There was no drug treatment, no education, no
vocational training.

``I wanted to get a trade so I can have a skill to get a job once I
re-enter society,'' Blakley said. But at Halifax, it wasn't going to happen.

``I felt like I was stuck between a rock and a hard spot,'' Blakley said.
``So do you know what I had to do? I had to catch some charges.''

Blakley deliberately incurred disciplinary charges by refusing to go out on
a road crew. As a result, he was transferred to Lawrenceville Correctional
Center, a new, privately operated Level 3 facility.

The Lawrenceville prison, he said, ``is loaded down with trades. Plumbing,
interior decorating, a computer course, a greenhouse, carpentry. . . .

``Man, it's crazy. It's backwards. You just have to roll with it -- or you
have to be creative.''

Below is the index for this series of articles:

US VA: Virginia Is Paying The Price For Prison Boom
URL: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v00/n326/a09.html

US VA: Overbuilt Prisons Must Import Criminals
URL: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v00/n327/a01.html

US VA: Virginia's Incarceration Rate Far Exceeds Crime Rate
URL: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v00/n327/a02.html

US VA: Department Of Corrections Denies Information Requests
URL: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v00/n327/a03.html

US VA: Drugs, Not Violence, Are The Fuel For Prison Growth
URL: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v00/n327/a04.html

US VA: Expert And Inmates Find Faults In Prison Drug-Treatment
URL: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v00/n331/a13.html

US VA: Poll Shows Little Support For Gilmore's Get-Tough Drug
URL: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v00/n327/a05.html

US VA: Blacks Imprisoned At Rate Out Of Proportion To Drug Use
URL: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v00/n327/a06.html

US VA: Cost Of Housing Older Inmates Goes Up As Risk Goes Down
URL: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v00/n328/a01.html

US VA: New Prisons Bring Much-Needed Jobs To Rural Areas
URL: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v00/n328/a02.html

US VA: Party And Racial Lines Divide Lawmakers On Prison Reform
URL: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v00/n332/a01.html