STRATEGY ON DRUG OFFENDERS SHIFTS

Connecticut is ready to join a national trend of sending nonviolent,
drug-dependent convicts into community and treatment programs instead of
prisons.

The change in philosophy is not the result of a growing benevolence on the
part of lawmakers and policymakers. It stems from rampant overcrowding
across the nation despite years of prison-building, a recognition that
harsher sentencing and reduced spending on treatment have failed, and
growing taxpayer frustration over the high cost of building and maintaining
new prisons.

"We have come out of the most expensive prison and jail construction binge
that this country has seen," said George Kain, a professor of justice and
law administration at Western Connecticut State University. "And what we're
beginning to realize is that it's not working."

State policymakers recently have proposed a host of initiatives aimed at
helping nonviolent and drug-dependent convicts avoid long prison sentences.

The cornerstone of a recent proposal by the governor's prison and jail
overcrowding commission is the construction of a 500-bed facility called
the Community Justice Center. The facility would be used to hold some
defendants awaiting trial, provide residential space for parolees who
require mental health or sex-offender treatment, and provide a re-entry
facility for inmates who have nearly finished serving their sentences.

The commission also recommends expansion of drug treatment programs;
expansion of assessment programs for parolees; greater judicial discretion;
and increasing the number of probation officers.

In his budget to be presented this week, Gov. John G. Rowland is expected
to request $5 million for the Community Justice Center and $425,000 to
expand community-based residential treatment services for nonviolent drug
offenders.

Kain said studies have shown no evidence to support that longer prison
sentences, mandatory minimum sentences and "zero tolerance" and
"three-strike" initiatives do anything to lower rates of relapsing to crime.

"The reason it doesn't work is because the courts are already tough on
crime," Kain said. "We're very good at locking up dangerous people."

Kain said the problem is how the criminal justice system treats nonviolent
and drug-dependent offenders.

In Connecticut, 85 percent of the state's prison population is in need of
substance abuse treatment, according to Department of Correction officials.

Nationally, parole violators accounted for 35 percent of new prison
admissions in 1997, according to the U.S. Department of Justice Bureau of
Justice Statistics.

The state's growing inmate population, which went from 9,589 in 1990 to
16,766 in 1999, has caused spending to skyrocket. In 1990, the correction
department's budget was $187 million. By the 2000 fiscal year, it increased
to $484 million. Nationally, the prison population has jumped from 712,000
in 1990 to 1.86 million in 1999.

Emphasis On Treatment

Some initiatives have shown that treatment is often more cost-effective
than incarceration.

For example, an Arizona law passed in 1996, mandating drug treatment
instead of prison for nonviolent drug offenders, saved the state $2.6
million at the end of the first year. The state at that time found that 78
percent of the offenders tested negative for drugs after completing the
program.

New York Gov. George E. Pataki is proposing a plan that would shorten
prison terms for nonviolent drug offenses, replace mandatory imprisonment
with treatment in some cases, and give judges discretion in imposing
sentences.

Other states, such as California, New Mexico and Massachusetts, also are
considering revamping existing drug laws to emphasize treatment.

Dr. Brett Rayford, the health and addiction services director for
Connecticut's corrections department, said he welcomes the switch. He said
the criminal justice system typically fluctuates in 10-year cycles between
an emphasis on incarceration and rehabilitation.

Policymakers over the past decade had strongly emphasized incarceration
because of the introduction of crack-cocaine and the violence that came
with it.

"Much of the effects of the past 10 years was in response to an epidemic,"
Rayford said. And, at the time, the best solution seemed to be to build
more prisons and create new laws to lock up drug offenders.

"But now states are saying, we need a different response," Rayford said.

The state legislature's Program Review and Investigations Committee wants
lawmakers to remove mandatory minimum sentences so that judges have greater
discretion in sentencing. It also wants to increase the use of parole and
probation and significantly increase funding for community-based treatment
facilities.

Renee LaMark Muir, principal analyst for the committee, said any one of
these changes would open space in the state's prisons.

"Any increase or decrease in prison terms, multiplied by the thousands of
people affected, would have a big impact," LaMark Muir said.

Who Is Nonviolent?

Such a shift in emphasis is not without critics.

State Sen. Winthrop Smith Jr., R-Milford, cautions against any dramatic
changes in the state criminal justice system.

"I think we've done a great job of lowering crime rates," Smith said.
"We've got a great policy and this is not the time change it."

Smith said if convicts need treatment, they should get it in a correction
setting.

He questions the cost of staffing, building and developing a network of
community-based programs, and how it would be coordinated with parole and
probation.

"You're potentially talking about the creation of a new state department,"
Smith said.

He says he also believes that keeping drug offenders out of jail could send
the wrong message, and he questions what definitions would be used to
determine which offenders are nonviolent.

On the other hand, Rep. Michael P. Lawlor, D-East Haven, said he sees the
shift in focus as encouraging.

Lawlor said most lawmakers have known for years that building and filling
prisons was not the most cost-effective way for the criminal justice system
to operate. But he said they feared appearing soft on crime.

Dean Pagani, Rowland's spokesman, said the governor agrees that it is time
to reconsider the appropriateness of treating nonviolent drug offenders "as
harshly as they've been treated in recent years."