DRUG-REHAB PROGRAM HELPS PRISON INMATES

Approach Is Used At Oldham Facility

Lee West is the odd man who doesn't want to leave prison if granted parole
later this year.

West, who is serving a 14-year sentence for committing burglary and robbery
while on a marijuana-smoking binge, said he plans to stay at the Roederer
Correctional Complex in La Grange to attend a drug-rehabilitation program
that saved his life.

"I need all the help possible," West said.

Even though the 23-year-old has completed the program at Roederer, he plans
to stay with it for at least another year so he will have a better chance
of staying clean when he leaves.

Five of Kentucky's 12 prisons now offer a six-month "therapeutic community"
drug- and alcohol-rehabilitation program in which inmates aid other inmates
in getting and staying sober through counseling and group meetings such as
Alcoholics Anonymous. The program also helps inmates prepare for life
outside prison.

It requires inmates to undergo intensive treatment and therapy three days a
week. The other two days are spent working around prison grounds and on
community-service projects, to teach inmates skills they can use after
being released.

"The clients mentor and treat each other," said Kevin Pangburn, director of
the division of mental health at the prison. "This is really peer driven."

Drug rehabilitation in prison is necessary to break the cycle of substance
abuse that led the inmates to prison in the first place, said Dwayne
Simpson, director of the Institute for Behavioral Research and a psychology
professor at Texas Christian University.

Simpson studied the effectiveness of treatment programs nationally. He
concluded that between 70 percent and 80 percent of prisoners have drug-use
histories and only about 10 percent get help.

"Assessments of drug-use severity and treatment needs suggest about half of
all inmates should have access to treatment," Simpson said.

Not all states offer effective treatment programs, though, he said. The
study found that about 75 percent of all untreated inmates returned to
prison within three years, usually within a year of being released.

"But that can be cut in half if the inmate completes in-prison treatment
and gets into re-entry prison after-care treatment," Simpson said.

Other states that offer programs similar to Kentucky's include California,
Texas and Delaware.

Inmates at Roederer, which has 180 participants in the rehab program,
recently said it focused on personal responsibility, accountability, basic
life skills and sobriety.

"Never once in my life had I thought my use of marijuana was a problem,"
said West, who used to begin smoking the drug each day at breakfast. "This
program showed me I have a problem."

Another inmate, Mark Stacy, also hopes the program helps him stay clean
when he is released.

Stacy, 34, is nearly three years into a 10-year sentence for assault and
manslaughter. He's an "elder" in the rehabilitation program, meaning he
counsels other inmates on getting and staying sober.

Part of the solution is understanding what brought inmates to prison in the
first place, Stacy said. "We will find the answer to these things among
ourselves," he said.

Counselor David Graham said finding that answer within himself once he went
to prison is what helped him.

Graham, 41, is serving 10 years for a manslaughter conviction in Rowan County.

The key, Graham said, is for the inmate to shake off the "convict code" of
not taking responsibility for his own actions and failing to hold others
accountable for their behavior.

"If a man is not willing to give up the convict code, the chance of him
giving up anything is nil," he said.