ALTERNATIVES TO JAIL, LIKE 'DRUG COURTS' MUST BE USED

To the editor:

Why are we thinking of building a new prison in the
Okanagan?

Prisons keep addicts off the street, but do little more than that.
Drug courts, by contrast, focus on teaching addicts how to stay clean
and how to do things others take for granted.

A national survey by The Urban Institute, a "think tank," found that
drug courts reduce crime and the costs of incarceration. For this
reason drug courts are winning plaudits across the political spectrum.

Prison has a punitive as well as a rehabilitative aspect and some have
been cool to drug courts for that reason, seeing them as coddling criminals.

But criminals will eventually return to society. Better they return
well-adjusted rather than hardened and still addicted.

In any event, such schemes not only help the participant but save
money.

Carl Ignatius Archer,

Kelowna