DON'T WAREHOUSE INMATES WITH DRUG OR MENTAL PROBLEMS

Local jails and juvenile-corrections facilities need state aid in treating
those whose crimes stem from their afflictions.

ROANOKE'S JAIL, to the credit of former Sheriff Alvin Hudson, now a city
councilman, was one of the first in the state to implement a treatment
program for inmates with drug-or other substance-abuse problems.

Today, many local jails in Virginia have similar programs. But finding
adequate funding for them becomes more difficult year by year as the
proportion of inmates - now about 80 percent - with substance-abuse
problems increases.

In addition to the hopheads, local jails and juvenile-detention centers are
also dealing with growing numbers of inmates with mental illnesses, and
funds for mental-health services to help them can be equally hard to
obtain. As a result, a volatile atmosphere may prevail in the facilities,
threatening the safety of other inmates and guards. Meanwhile, the needs of
mentally ill inmates are inhumanely disregarded.

Localities and mental-health professionals are encouraging state government
to provide more funds for substance-abuse and mental-health treatment for
adults and children behind bars.

The justification for the investment ought to be patently clear: If local
jails and juvenile-corrections institutions merely "warehouse" inmates with
drug or mental problems, the odds are great that those individuals, once
released, will commit new crimes related to their addiction or illness.

The costs of their new crimes will be paid not only by victims who may be
robbed or assaulted, but also by society. They may include expensive,
long-term confinement of the recidivists in state prisons or mental
hospitals; the erosion of neighborhoods and downtown areas when law-abiding
citizens and businesses move out in fear of criminals moving in; and the
loss of productivity that rehabilitated criminals might have contributed.

It's not fuzzy math but common sense to recognize that jailhouse treatment
programs for inmates with drug or mental problems is a good, cost-effective
investment.