DRUGS, ALCOHOL LINKED TO 80% OF THOSE BEHIND BARS

Crime: Study is most authoritative yet to connect crime, substance abuse.
Finding will likely increase pressure for mandatory treatment of offenders.

WASHINGTON--Drug and alcohol abuse and addiction played a part in the
crimes committed by 80% of the 1.7 million men and women now behind bars in
the United States, a major national study released Thursday concludes.

The study by Columbia University's National Center on Addiction and
Substance Abuse is the most authoritative assessment yet linking heavy use
of drugs and alcohol to crime. And it is expected to increase pressure for
mandatory substance abuse treatment for inmates while they are in prison
and after their release.

"Those 1.4 million offenders in state and federal prisons and local jails
violated drug or alcohol laws, were high at the time they committed their
crimes, stole property to buy drugs, or have a history of drug and alcohol
abuse and addiction, or share some combination of these," said Joseph A.
Califano Jr., chairman of the Columbia center.

Califano, secretary of Health, Education and Welfare during the Jimmy
Carter administration, said the three-year study's results call for
"opening a second front in the war on crime"--inside the nation's prisons.

This would involve identifying drug and alcohol abusers, assessing their
treatment and training needs, separating them from criminal incorrigibles
and giving them "the hand up they need to become productive citizens and
responsible parents," Califano told a press conference here.

It also would involve a substantial investment of public funds--an average
of $6,500 per inmate per year--that both states and the federal government
would be hard-pressed to produce. Still, the study argues that such a
commitment would pay off in the long run.

For instance, the study found that inmates with alcohol- and drug-use
problems are the most likely to be reincarcerated, with length of sentences
increasing for repeat offenders. Thus, effective treatment programs could
dramatically reduce future incarceration costs, the study contends.

The study acknowledges that many of those imprisoned for crimes in which
their drug or alcohol use was a factor "would have committed their offenses
even in the absence of substance abuse."

But hundreds of thousands of inmates "would be law-abiding, working,
taxpaying citizens and responsible parents, if they lived sober lives,"
Califano said.

In addition to documenting the central role that drug and alcohol abuse and
addiction play in the soaring population of federal, state and local
prisons and jails, the study concludes that:

* Alcohol is more closely associated with violent crime than any other
drug, most notably crack cocaine, powder cocaine and heroin. *

The leading substance abuse crime in America is drunk driving, accounting
for 1.4 million arrests in 1995 at a cost of $5.2 billion for arrest and
prosecution.

Califano said that "the most troublesome aspect of these grim statistics is
that the nation is doing so little to change them."

According to the study, conducted from 1993 to 1996, the number of inmates
needing substance abuse treatment climbed from 688,000 to 840,000, while
the number in treatment hovered around 150,000.

Califano also said that "much of the treatment . . . is inadequate."

The annual average cost of $6,500 per inmate to provide the treatment,
appropriate education, job training and health care envisioned by the study
does not count routine incarceration costs.

The new spending would add up to $7.8 billion for the 1.2 million inmates
the study identifies as drug and alcohol abusers or addicts (200,000 more
inmates were found to be dealers who do not use drugs).

The study was vague on how its proposals would be funded but argued that
in-prison treatment and follow-up programs would prove cost-effective,
eventually saving taxpayers billions of dollars.

The study's authors use these figures in making the argument: For each
inmate who successfully completes the $6,500-a-year treatment and becomes a
taxpaying, law-abiding citizen, the annual economic benefit is $68,800.
That represents the savings on incarceration and health-care costs, salary
earned, taxes paid and contributions to the economy.

If only 10% of the 1.2 million inmates with drug or alcohol problems were
successfully treated and trained, these 120,000 individuals would generate
$8.256 billion in "economic benefit" in the first year of work after
release, the study estimates.

But persuading states to fund the initial costs could prove difficult. In
1996, a Clinton administration effort to require states to include drug
treatment programs as a condition of receiving federal grants for prison
building was watered down by Congress to requiring only that they include a
plan for such treatment in their prison-building program.

And White House drug policy director Gen. Barry R. McCaffrey, while
praising the Columbia study's findings, noted that "when it comes to drug
treatment, the federal government will not be the solution."

INMATES AND ADDICTION

The study found that drug and alcohol abuse and addiction are implicated in
the incarceration of 80% of the 1.7 million people behind bars in the
United States.
-
How drugs and alcohol were involved:

Local - State - Fed. jails
Under influence (drugs or alcohol) at time of crime 48% 23% 55%
Committed crime to get money for drugs 17% 10% 13%
Inmate has a history of alcohol abuse 29% 14% 15%
Inmate ever used illegal drugs regularly 64% 43% 59%

Source: The National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse

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