W.VA. CRIMES LINKED TO SUBSTANCE ABUSE COST $333 MILLION

CHARLESTON -- From initial police investigations all the way through
parole, crimes linked to drug and alcohol use cost West Virginia
nearly $333 million, according to a report released Thursday.

The report, compiled by the Prevention Resource Center for the Gov.
Joe Manchin-appointed Partnership to Promote Community Well-Being,
tracked costs in the criminal justice system from the 2005 fiscal year
through the 2008 fiscal year.

The numbers show ballooning costs, with 11 of 12 entities from the
courts to police agencies reporting higher costs in 2008 than in 2005.
Based on those numbers, the report estimates West Virginia will be
spending nearly $500 million on crimes linked to drugs and alcohol by
the 2017 fiscal year.

"Substance abuse places an enormous financial burden on West
Virginia's criminal justice system," the report concludes. "The
alarming fact is the burden will continue to grow unless urgent
actions are taken to provide the continuum of care necessary to stem
this growth."

The report examines the cost of crimes directly or indirectly linked
to drugs and alcohol. Examples of directly linked crimes would be the
sale or possession of illegal drugs, while an example of an indirectly
linked crime would be committing a robbery to pay for drugs.

In 2008, nearly half the prisoners in Division of Corrections
facilities and about two-thirds of those incarcerated in regional
jails were there because of crimes linked to drug or alcohol use, the
report found.

That year, the Division of Corrections spent about $73.6 million on
inmates convicted of those crimes, and the Regional Jail and
Correctional Facility Authority spent $51.4 million -- more than half
its budget.

"If we just keep doing what we're doing, things are only going to get
worse," said Wayne Coombs, director for research and development at
the Prevention Resource Center. "It's really draining the resources of
the state."

The expenses aren't only attached to jails and prisons. The report
estimates that municipal, county and state police agencies spent a
combined $142 million or so in the 2008 fiscal year on crimes ranging
from drug dealing to drunken driving. That's about half of all the
money spent on law enforcement that year.

The new report comes a week after another Manchin-appointed body made
recommendations about reducing overcrowding in the state's 14 prisons
and 10 regional jails.

"It's so evident that just expanding the current system is a failure,"
said the Rev. Dennis Sparks, executive director of the West Virginia
and a member of the task forced that produced the overcrowding report.
"It doesn't treat people, it only creates more criminals."

One of the recommendations was diverting inmates with drug or alcohol
problems to treatment programs, along with reducing sentences for
non-violent criminals. It costs about $28,000 a year to feed and house
an inmate, apart from the other costs -- court, police, parole --
identified by Thursday's report.

"Nonviolent criminals with substance abuse problems are definitely a
part of what the governor's looking at in terms of changes to the
prison system," Manchin spokesman Matt Turner said. "Just being tough
and giving those people more prison time has not really worked."

The Prevention Resource Center plans to release other reports over the
next year documenting the cost of substance abuse for the state's
health, education and overall economic systems, Coombs said.