CALIFORNIA PRISON INMATES HAVE EASY ACCESS TO DRUGS, SURVEY FINDS

LOS ANGELES (AP) -- A survey has found that inmates imprisoned in
California and across the nation have easy access to drugs behind bars and
can readily make connections to acquire and sell drugs once they are released.

The survey by the Phoenix House, a drug rehabilitation group, found that 88
percent of former inmates indicated it was easy to obtain drugs in prison.
Their stint in prison also made 46 percent of the respondents more likely
to use drugs than if they had not been incarcerated, according to the study.

The findings were from a poll of nearly 600 former inmates enrolled in drug
treatment programs at 10 Phoenix House locations in New York, Florida,
Texas and Santa Ana. Many of the respondents were paroled to Phoenix House
straight from prison.

Highlights of the Phoenix House survey, which was conducted in April by the
polling firm Penn, Schoen & Berland Associates, include:

- -- 83 percent of the respondents (92 percent in California) reported being
arrested on a drug-related charge.

- -- 46 percent (55 percent in California) said being imprisoned made them
more likely to use drugs.

- -- 78 percent said putting drug users in jail had little effect on
controlling the drug problem.

Some experts disputed the survey's account of the availability of drugs in
prison.

"The availability of drugs will vary from prison to prison, prisoner to
prisoner and drug to drug," said Mark A.R. Kleiman, director of UCLA's Drug
Policy Analysis Program. "Anyone who was a serious heroin or cocaine user
outside would find it very hard to maintain that inside. They mostly come
out of prison detoxed. But as soon as they hit the street, they come out
looking for drugs."

The drug issue was the subject of legislative hearings last year in
California and state Department of Corrections officials acknowledged that
drugs are easily available to inmates.

The Corrections Department had not seen the Phoenix House survey and
declined to comment on it, spokeswoman Margot Bach told the Los Angeles
Times on Thursday.

The department has programs to flush the system of drugs, Bach said. The
state has recently started a program to randomly test a sampling of inmates
for drugs at several state facilities.

The experiment also includes drug-sniffing dogs and new techniques to find
minute particles of controlled substances on surfaces, Bach said.