INMATE DRUG TESTS ORDERED

AUSTIN -- Texas prison inmates must be randomly tested for drugs to prevent
the state's juvenile offender programs from losing millions of dollars in
federal grants.

The first such testing to be ordered inside state prisons will start by
September and cost about $400,000, the Texas Department of Criminal Justice
told the Austin American-Statesman.

The agency says tentative plans call for about 6,900 convicts a month to be
tested at most of the 107 state prisons, which house violent criminals and
other felons, and state jails, which house nonviolent offenders.

The state's imposition of random urine testing is in response to a law
Congress passed last year requiring states to draw up plans to test and
treat prisoners and parolees as a condition of receiving money for prisons
from the federal government. Texas' plan must be presented by March and
enacted by September.