A New Approach to Drug Crime
Rehab in prisons and intermediate punishments deserve a try

California's crackdown on crime, symbolized by the passage
of the threestrikes law in 1994, is sending a message, and
the rates of major crimes have fallen to levels not seen since the late
1960s. That message, however, seems lost on the state's teeming
numbers of drug and alcohol abusers.
A record 100,000 inmates of California's state prisons have
histories of chronic drug or alcohol use. Projections say that within
three years incarceration of drugrelated prisoners will cost
taxpayers $500 million to $1 billion annually.
The need to control these soaring costs has forged a unique
alliance between many of the state's conservative and liberal
leaders, who are rallying for expansion of intensive substance abuse
programs in prisons. Meeting in supervised groups, convicts explore
themes like malefemale relationships, family problems, trust and
inner rage. These may sound like issues for your neighborhood
psychologist, but many of the hard men and women in California's
prisons are there because they couldn't handle common problems.
A growing body of research shows that such programs
effectively reduce recidivism rates. A recent study by the National
Development and Research Institute, for instance, found that within
two years after being released from prison, 65% of untreated
substanceabusing convicts were rearrested, compared to only
16% of convicts treated in an intensive substance abuse program.
That and other success stories should lead the state Senate to
pass SB 1089, a bill that would enable California to expand
intensive substance abuse programs, now established in only three
of its facilities, throughout all 32 state prisons. The alternative is far
costlier: a situation wherein tens of thousands of addicts check in
and out of prisons every year, a cycle that effective substance abuse
programs can stop.
Courts working with state and county officials also could impose
more intermediate punishments at the time of sentencing for those
who are more a danger to themselves than to society. A second bill
pending before the state Senate, SB 295, would give counties more
money to establish such programs. A model could be the thoughtful
"Communitybased Punishment Options Plan" devised last year by
San Diego County Sheriff William B. Kolender, which would
impose punishments short of imprisonment and then assess their
efficacy in a way that promises to save money while protecting
public safety.
It's time to realize that far from coddling criminals, intermediate
punishments and prison substance abuse programs can help reduce
crime, saving California taxpayers billions of dollars in the process.

Copyright Los Angeles Times
letters@latimes.com