MCCAFFREY TAKES RIGHT TACK

It was encouraging to hear the nation's top drug policy official call
for a greater emphasis on intervention and treatment as a means of
reducing drug-fueled crime in this country.

Gen. Barry McCaffrey, often viewed as a hard-liner and criticized for
his seeming intractability on drug issues, outlined proposals for drug
testing and treatment throughout the criminal justice system.

This is an encouraging step forward, and a necessary change of tack.
The relationship between drug use and crime is startling. According to
General McCaffrey, as many as 85 per cent of prison inmates in this
country are there in some measure because of alcohol or drug use.

Change the pattern of drug and alcohol abuse, the thinking reasonably
goes, and the criminal behavior also will be changed.

General McCaffrey's plan is bold - maybe even radical in the eyes of
some lawmakers and law enforcement officers - but it is an approach
that deserves to be given every opportunity to succeed. It is
difficult to disagree with General McCaffrey's assertion that the
criminal justice system is a "disaster,'' as he termed it, because it
locks up tens of thousands of criminals without treating their drug or
alcohol habits.

It doesn't take a genius to figure out that if the substance abuse
isn't treated, the criminal activity - often undertaken to support a
drug habit - will continue.

Break the abuse cycle, and it may be possible to break the criminal
cycle.

Drug treatment programs in prisons will add to the cost of
incarceration, possibly by as much as $3,000 per inmate, but that's an
investment in lower crime rates in the future, and can be offset by
less chance of the same felon spending more time in jail at some later
stage. With the prison population likely to reach 2 million if radical
steps aren't taken, it is surely time that the "lock 'em up and throw
away the key'' brigade starts to rethink its policies.

Locking people up is appropriate punishment, but what about
rehabilitation? What about trying to reform at least some of those who
pass through the prison system so that they won't repeat their
criminal behavior?

Failure to initiate better rehabilitation and intervention programs
will inevitably perpetuate prisons as crowded warehouses in which
inmates' substance abuse problems lie dormant, only to reappear on
their release.

Treatment alone, without punishment, is unwise. Criminals must pay for
their crimes, whether or not those crimes were fueled by drugs. But
punishment without treatment solves nothing.