OFFENDERS' DRUG USE INCREASES BUT TREATMENT DECLINES, STUDY FINDS

The proportion of new prison inmates who were drug users at the time of
their arrest increased this decade, while drug treatment in state and
federal prisons fell sharply, according to a study released on Tuesday by
the Justice Department.

"What is particularly tragic," said Richard Rosenfeld, a professor of
criminology at the University of Missouri at St. Louis, "is that drug
treatment in prison, where it can be coerced, has proven to be effective as
an anti-crime program.

"This is an unintended consequence of prison expansion," Rosenfeld said in
an interview. "Each time we spend a dollar on building a new prison or
expanding an existing one, it is one less dollar for drug treatment." Also
Tuesday, President Clinton announced that he would propose $215 million in
his next budget for testing and treating prisoners for drug use. About $115
million is currently budgeted for combating drug use by prisoners, parolees
and probationers.

The anti-drug proposal had been planned for some time as a significant part
of Clinton's overall anti-crime strategy, White House aides said.
Anticipating bad news in the Justice Department report, they timed its
announcement for Tuesday in hopes of blunting the report's impact. The new
study, by the Bureau of Justice Statistics, reported that the proportion of
state inmates who were had been drug users before arrest -- that is, had
used drugs in the previous month -- rose to 57 percent in 1997 from 50
percent in 1990, as the proportion among federal inmates increased to 45
percent from 32 percent.

During those same years, the study said, the proportion of inmates in state
prisons who received treatment for their drug abuse fell to 9.7 percent in
1997, from 24.5 percent in 1991, while the number receiving drug treatment
in federal prisons declined to 9.2 percent from 15.7 percent. The report
found that participation by inmates in state and federal prisons in other,
nonmandatory drug abuse programs, like group discussions, did increase from
1991 to 1997. But Rosenfeld and other experts said these programs, which
are cheaper to administer but lack forced participation, are much less
effective.

The increase in drug use by prisoners in state and federal prisons in the
period leading up to their crimes appears to be the result of increased
attention by both law-enforcement officials and legislators to drugs,
singling out drug users for more arrests and giving them longer sentences
if they have a history of drug involvement, the experts said. The actual
number of criminals sentenced to prison for drug crimes increased 6.4
percent a year from 1991 to 1997, only slightly faster than the rate of 6.3
percent for those convicted of nondrug offenses, the Justice Department
said. But police, prosecutors and judges are now more likely to take
previous drug use into account when making an arrest, bringing charges or
passing sentence, the experts suggested.

At the same time, the huge increase in the number of Americans in jail or
prison, which has more than doubled since 1980 to 1.8 million, has forced
many prisons to cut back on a variety of counseling and educational
programs in order to make space for more beds for inmates.

Bruce Johnson, the director of the Institute for Special Populations
Research at the National Development and Research Institutes in New York, a
nonprofit research organization, said, "The drop in substance abuse
treatment reflects a systematic decision to reduce these treatment programs
and the need to use the space for more inmates."

The Justice Department report underscored the strong link between drug use
and criminality, finding that 83 percent of inmates in state prisons and 73
percent of those in federal prisons had used drugs at some point in their
lives. "Increased substance abuse and criminal offending," said Andrew
Golub, a principal investigator also at the National Development and
Research Institutes, "are often characteristic of the downward spiral
experienced by many individuals who end up in prison."

Johnson and Golub have found that crack cocaine use has dropped sharply
among young people in New York during the 1990s, an important factor in the
decline in violent crime in the city. But young people now are more likely
to smoke marijuana, the researchers have found, a conclusion echoed by the
Justice Department report.

The Justice Department report also found that more violent crimes were
committed by people who had been drinking alcohol than by those under the
influence of drugs.