BOOZE DRUGS AND PRISONS

California has just completed a $5-billion building boom that tripled its
number of prison cells, but still finds itself without enough space to
house prisoners. State prisons are expected to reach maximum capacity by
2000, while county jails are so strained that 2.6 million arrest warrants
went unserved last year because there would have been no place to put those
arrested.

Gov. Pete Wilson has proposed a $1-billion bond measure to fund
construction of four new state prisons. But rather than simply launching
another building boom, California legislators should begin a serious effort
to address what two new studies identify as the chief underlying cause of
soaring incarceration rates: substance abuse.

Drug and alcohol abuse play a part in 80% of the crimes that land Americans
in prison, concludes a new study by Columbia University. However, the
study adds, substance abuse goes undetected and untreated in most prisons.
If most of these people remained locked up for life, failure to treat their
abuse would notthreaten public safety.

But according to a report last week by California's little Hoover
Commission, 110,000 of the 154,000 people imprisoned in California are
released every year and 60% of them return to prison within two years,
largely because of problems related to drugs and alcohol.

Fortunately, substance abuse detection is becoming a priority in Washington
and Sacramento. President Clinton last week asked Congress to tie federal
funding for state prisons to improvements in drug abuse detection, such as
urine and blood tests. And earlier this month, Wilson proposed spending
$1.3 million to improve equipment and canine units for contraband detection
and $273,000 for conducting random drug and alcohol tests on prison
employees. As Richard Stratton, founder and publisher of "Prison life"
magazine, explains,"most drugs are brought in by prison guards "who find it
an easy way to boost their average $40,000 yearly earnings.

Despite his strides on substance detection, Wilson has failed to provide
adequate funding for what should follow: treatment. An estimated 120,000 of
the state's 154,000 inmates have substance abuse problems, but the state
will only be able to provide substantial treatment for 3,000.

Some prisoners, of course, would have committed their crimes regardless of
substance abuse. And many prisoners need far more than substance abuse
treatment: The Little Hoover Commission sensibly recommends education and
work programs to prepare felons for life on the outside, and better
monitoring after release.

Ambitious anti-drug efforts will take time to launch. But legislators can
start solving the problem now by providing more funding for substance abuse
treatment than the $31 million allocated for current programs. The Assembly
should take up a current bill sponsored by Sen.Bill Lockyer (D-Hayward)
that would phase in 8,000 new treatment slots over five years.

Short-term drug treatment programs are often ineffective. But liberal and
conservative criminologists alike recognize the effectiveness of intensive
prison and parole drug programs like those pioneered at San Diego's Richard
J.Donovan Correctional Facility. According to a federal study last year,
only 16% of inmates who completed the San Diego program returned to custody
within one year of their release, compared with a 65% return-to-custody
rate for an untreated group.

Wilson's drug detection measures are fine, but legislaton need to go beyond
that, funding drug treatment as well, to slow the revolving doors of our
state prisons.