DRUG TREATMENT GETS A BOOST

The beginning of an important shift in the nation's approach to
combatting drug-related crime can be seen in the recent success of
"drug courts" and other programs aimed at reducing prison costs by
diverting nonviolent drug users into serious drug treatment programs.

Making more resources available at every level of government to expand
these efforts would be a smart fiscal and crime-fighting strategy.

That was essentially the message the White House's director of
national drug policy, Gen. Barry McCaffrey, tried to convey last week
when he spoke before a gathering of law enforcement, prison and public
health officials in Washington. As the nation's drug czar, General
McCaffrey has long been an outspoken supporter of using alternatives
to incarceration for nonviolent drug offenders, and of making
treatment more broadly available to drug-dependent offenders when
they are behind bars and after they are released.

Nonetheless, his new remarks were heartening in that they seemed to
signal a renewed push by the Clinton administration to persuade state
and local officials to plow more money and energy into drug treatment
for people whose addiction leads them into collision with the criminal
justice system.

Of the 1.8 million people now in prison nationwide, a large percentage
- -- 400,000 altogether -- are addicts or chronic drug users.

Yet, as General McCaffrey noted, "incarcerating offenders without
treating underlying substance-abuse problems simply defers the time
when they are released back into our communities to start harming
themselves and the larger society." He pointed to research showing
that the recidivism rate declines significantly among those who
undergo treatment before, during or following incarceration --
powerful evidence that drug treatment works, even when it is imposed
upon prisoners in custody or as a condition of avoiding jail.

The evidence also bears out General McCaffrey's claim that a move away
from policies that automatically jail drug offenders would save
taxpayers money.

By instituting a program to divert low-level drug offenders into
treatment, Birmingham, Ala., has been able to avoid the sizable
expense of building a new jail to relieve overcrowding at the old one.
Arizona, the first state to begin treating all its nonviolent drug
offenders instead of locking them up, estimates that it saved more
than $2.5 million in the program's first fiscal year of operation.

No less impressive, more than three-quarters of those on probation
stayed free of drugs.

This is clearly a promising approach to a serious national problem,
and General McCaffrey is right to promote it.