'DETENTION' FOR DRUG ADDICTS URGED BY BARRISTER

Some form of "civil detention" for drug addicts should be provided as part
of a crime prevention strategy, Mr Eamon Leahy SC told a conference on
"Crime and Punishment: Retribution or Rehabilitation?"

"The drug addict engaged in street crime to feed a drug habit may well be
unable but will certainly be unwilling to view the criminal law as a stop
sign," he said at the conference in Dublin on Saturday.

As the addiction continued the need for resources to feed the addiction
would continue and consequently the need to commit crime would continue, he
said. Crime was a secondary problem to drug addiction, he said, but the
primary response to it was a criminal law response.

"Recent decisions by both the High and Supreme Courts have opened up at
least a reasonable possibility of the development of civil arrest and
detention as a potential means of vindicating the right to bodily integrity
of persons disadvantaged by drug addiction."

He suggested a component of an anti-drug strategy to illustrate the
potential for non-criminal law remedies. Mr Leahy told The Irish Times that
the selection for such detention could be made by local Garda
superintendents who usually knew which addicts were severely addicted and
involved in crime.

One route would be to make the consumption of heroin a criminal offence,
rather than just possession of it, which was the case at the moment, he
said. Gardai could arrest an individual, take a sample, and have him
detained for treatment.

Prof Barry Scheck, head of the Cordozo Law School in New York and
co-founder of the Innocence Project, said there were various theories
advanced for the fall in crime figures. One thesis from an economist in
Stanford relates it to the prevalence of abortion. "People who would have
been born would have been those most unwanted, most likely to be abused,
most likely to commit crimes."

Prof Scheck warned against mandatory sentences for specific offences. He
told the conference that it had led to the growth of an "informant culture"
in the US. "It has led to a shift in the power of sentencing from judges to
prosecutors. If a prosecutor chooses to charge a person with a specific
offence, he determines the sentence." There is only one way to avoid a
serious charge, to offer substantial assistance to the prosecution, he said.