REHABILITATION THE KEY TO STEMMING CRIME

WASHINGTON -- Here and in state capitals across America, there's a wave of
anguish:
What do we do about the 585,000 convicts who will come out of federal and
state prisons this
year? And who'll keep coming out in huge numbers each year, as far down the
road as we
can see?

The easy political formula since the '70s has been to lock up wrongdoers,
generally with set
sentences so no soft-headed judge or parole board could set them free
prematurely.
Rehabilitation was dismissed as worthless, drug treatment pitifully
underfunded.

So now we have to reap the whirlwind. Whether or not they were abused or
sodomized in
prison, most prisoners emerge embittered. Few have job skills. Many are
illiterate. Frequently
they have no place to stay. Many got illicit drugs behind bars, maintaining
their drug addictions.

At current recidivism rates, 62 percent of state prisoners will be
rearrested for some crime
within three years, and 41 percent will return to prison.

Big numbers in, big numbers out -- what did we expect? Ex-cons may be a few
years older and
less likely to commit violent crimes. But if they're hooked on drugs, if
they've been
regimented and isolated from normal work and family pressures, the bigger
wonder would be a
quick adjustment and going straight.

So the Clinton Justice Department wants to spend $145 million on drug
treatment, court
supervision and job training for some returning convicts. With 4.1 million
offenders already
under supervision, it's your classic drop in the bucket.

Thirty years of law and order, trying to scare people out of offenses with
heavier sentences,
have failed abysmally to stem crime, says ex-Watergate offender Charles W.
Colson.

Colson's Justice Fellowship and Prison Fellowship Ministries seek to create
person-to-person bridges between prisoners and communities, focusing on
offender-victim
reconciliation, volunteers mentoring offenders,and assisting ex-offenders
in finding a job.

Scattered across America, other imaginative programs are trying -- as
Colson puts it -- "to
restore the right moral balance to a community fractured by crime."

Consider the San Francisco Bay Area's Garden Project, created and directed
since 1985 by
reformer Catherine Sneed. Inmates at the San Bruno County Jail can
volunteer to work at an
organic farm and greenhouse on the premises.

On release, they can graduate to a paid job, working a minimum of 16 hours
a week, at a
city community garden. But not without stiff rules: Participants must stay
drug-free, pay
court-ordered child support, work for a General Educational Development
diploma or take
college courses, get a California driver's license and open a bank account.

Recidivism among Garden Project participants? It's 24 percent, compared
with 55 percent for
nonparticipants.

In St. Louis, a "restorative justice" program operating since 1993 has
helped 43 ex-offender

"Care Team" members -- first with housing, transportation, drug
counseling and basic education, but also by placing them in jobs where
they have a chance to serve people more needy than themselves. So far,
reports board member Rosanne Bennett, not one participant has
reoffended or returned to prison.

However promising and heartening such programs may be, they can't
substitute for a rational American corrections system. Costs, public
fears, recidivism will all continue to mount, barring two fundamental
reforms: well-planned rehabilitation for prisoners, and drug treatment
for all who need it.

Though rejected by law-and-order politicos starting in the '70s,
classic rehabilitation had dual common-sense goals -- to protect the
public and to help offenders return to a crime-free life in the community.

Criminologist Robert Fosen, who worked in the California justice
system in the '50s and '60s, explains how prisoners were then assigned
individual counselors, received full physical, dental and
psychological tests, and were prescribed individual treatment plans.
Indeterminate sentences to provide incentives for good behavior were
critical to the approach; so was funding for training, especially in
basic literacy. On release, offenders received ample parole services
-- easy enough when incarceration was a tiny percentage of today's
level.

Would it cost big money to recreate such services now? Of course. But
rationally, we really have no other choice.

Nor can we avoid, ultimately, another big bill to pay: universal drug
treatment for addicted offenders. High percentages of arrestees test
positive for illicit drugs; 60 percent of inmates say they were under
the influence of drugs or alcohol at the time of their offense.

My columns about drugs and prisons have evoked dozens of letters from
inmates pleading for drug treatment. Virtually every study says drug
rehab programs work -- indeed whether they're entered under legal
pressure or chosen voluntarily.

Delaware offenders who received therapeutic drug treatment, both
behind bars and afterward in a work-release program, were 70 percent
less likely than other convicts to return to drug use and incur
rearrest, according to the National Institute on Drug Abuse.

It's simple folks: $$$$$. Not whether we'll spend it, but
how.

Peirce is a Washington columnist and contributing editor of the
National Journal.