DRUG CHIEF SEEKS MORE TREATMENT, LESS JAIL

The Clinton administration's drug policy director, decrying a ''failed
social policy'' of incarcerating addicts, is starting a push to expand
treatment opportunities in the nation's criminal justice system. ''We're
seeking a historic shift in getting drug treatment effectively integrated
in the criminal justice system,'' Barry McCaffrey, director of the White
House Office of Drug Control Policy, said Monday.

''I would argue we have a failed social policy that commonsense legislators
at the state level and city councils and county executive commissions need
to look at so we can see why we can save money and improve public safety by
going this direction.'' The issue is the topic of a three-day conference
beginning today and led by McCaffrey along with Attorney General Janet Reno
and Health and Human Services Secretary Donna Shalala.

The conference brings together hundreds of law enforcement and corrections
officials, drug experts and state lawmakers.

For years, officials have discussed ways to help nonviolent offenders who
are often in and out of jails due to addictions to drugs or alcohol.

''This is not a soft-on-crime issue,'' McCaffrey said. ''It's trying to get
good corrections policy combined with drug treatment policy.''

Some of the programs McCaffrey cited as possibilities for states to enact
include more testing and treatment in prisons as well as more drug courts,
which have increased in 10 years from one to 600.

Each year, 500,000 offenders are released from state prisons and
communities, most untreated. Between 65 percent and 70 percent of all
untreated parolees with histories of cocaine and heroin use return to drugs
within just three months of release, according to Department of Justice
statistics.