President to order states to assess prison drug use, chart battle plan

WASHINGTON -- In an effort to break the link between drugs and crime,
President Clinton plans today to order the states to assess the prevalence
of drug use in their prisons and chart their success at reducing it,
according to a senior White House official and a draft of the presidential
directive.

Last year, as a condition of federal prison grants, Clinton and Congress
gave the states until March to spell out their plans for combating drug use
behind bars.

Taking that a step further, the directive the president is expected to sign
today would require the plans to include a study of the current level of
drug use in prisons and annual progress reports so that the public -- and
the federal government -- can judge how well the states are doing.

The evidence is conclusive that criminals continue abusing drugs and
alcohol while in prison and, once released, "go back out and commit crimes
to feed their habits," said Rahm Emanuel, a top Clinton domestic policy
adviser.

The president's goal, Emanuel added, is to "rip the habit out of them"
while they are in prison through a combination of mandatory drug testing
and treatment.

"Convicted offenders who undergo drug testing and treatment while
incarcerated and after release are approximately twice as likely to stay
drug- and crime-free as those offenders who do not receive drug treatment,"
Clinton said in a draft memorandum to Attorney General Janet Reno.

The presidential action follows by a few days the release of a national
report driving home the connection between heavy drug and alcohol use and
crime. The study by Columbia University's National Center on Addiction and
Substance Abuse shows that alcohol abuse and addiction played a part in the
crimes committed by 80 percent of the 1.7 million men and women now behind
bars in the United States.

The White House had been working on the directive, but the president
decided to announce it now because of the Columbia report, which is
expected to increase pressure for mandatory substance-abuse treatment for
inmates while they are behind bars and on parole, Emanuel said.

The White House also plans to renew its effort to press Congress to let
states use their prison funds for drug testing and treatment.

In his draft memo to Reno, Clinton asked for legislation to be submitted to
Congress that would enable states to use their "federal prison construction
and substance-abuse treatment funds to provide a full range of drug
testing, drug treatment and sanctions for offenders under criminal justice
supervision."

Although Congress and the president agreed to require the states to come up
with plans, the GOP-controlled Congress balked at allowing states to use
prison funds for this purpose.

The president's memo also directed the attorney general to work with states
on legislation to create "stiffer penalties for drug trafficking into and
within correctional facilities."

Clinton is also expected to announce that he will ask Congress for $192
million in his fiscal 1999 budget for a series of initiatives to promote
what the White House calls its "coerced abstinence" programs and treatment
in the criminal justice system.