DRUG COURTS AND PROGRAMS REDUCE ABUSE

Drug-dependent individuals are responsible for a disproportionately
large percentage of violent crimes and property offenses such as
assault, rape, murder, robbery, burglary and theft.

According to the National Institute of Justice's Arrestee and Drug
Abuse Monitoring (ADAM) report, roughly two-thirds of adult arrestees
and more than half of juvenile arrestees test positive for at least
one illicit drug. A third of state prisoners and about one in five
federal prisoners said they committed their offenses while under the
influence of drugs.

Many criminals turned to crime for money to support expensive drug
habits. Therefore, drug-related behavior takes up a significant
portion of America's law enforcement and corrections budgets. Drug
users commit about half of all felonies in big cities.

Drug abusers constitute about half the people on probation and parole
in America (some 2.5 million). Three-quarters of chronic cocaine,
heroin and methamphetamine users are arrested in the course of any
given year. Only a quarter of these people received drug treatment in
the past.

Most return to drugs as soon as they complete their prison terms.
Throughout the U.S., 2 million arrested drug users a year require
treatment to extricate themselves from lives of crime.

Because so many drug addicts become involved with the criminal justice
system, this venue is a natural place to offer drug treatment. Studies
prove that when people are forced into therapy, results are positive.
Unfortunately, only a small proportion of defendants requesting drug
treatment currently are helped. Without effective intervention, we are
merely postponing the time when offenders return to drugs and crime.

Research indicates that therapy lasting longer than 90 days is much
more likely to reduce drug use and crime. Follow-up is also important.
An evaluation conducted by Dr. James Inciardi demonstrated that
prisoners who participated in transitional work-release following
in-prison drug treatment were twice as likely to remain drug free and
a third more likely to be arrest free 18 months after release,
compared to inmates who received no such supervision.

These findings need to be given careful attention at a time when
probation and other intermediate measures are generally being eliminated.

Drug treatment, coupled with various forms of rehabilitation, such as
literacy and job training, yields the best results.

From 1980 to 1996, the number of people in U.S. prisons tripled,
largely due to substance abuse. The cost to taxpayers of keeping a
person in jail is about $25,000 a year. The expense of treatment is
tiny by comparison. Experience has shown that we can't arrest our way
out of the drug problem.

Today, 700 drug courts have been instituted or are in the planning
stages throughout the United States, up from the dozen that existed in
1994. These courts offer drug treatment as an alternative to
incarceration for non-violent offenders. Defendants who complete the
drug court program either have their charges dismissed or sentences
reduced. More than 100,000 people have been diverted to drug courts,
which saves money and lives.

Drug courts and other diversionary programs currently reach only 3
percent of the criminal justice population. In the interest of public
safety as well as humane and effective correctional policy, drug
courts, drug-free prisons and drug treatment for law-breakers should
be expanded.

Ultimately, such programs will reduce overall drug abuse in America.