PRISONERS HELP EACH OTHER GET OFF DRUGS

5 KY. Facilities Offer Community Rehab

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

West, who is serving 14 years for burglary and robbery while on a
marijuana-smoking binge, said he plans to stay at Roederer Correctional
Complex to attend a drug rehabilitation 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'll stay 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. Two other days are spent working around prison grounds and on
community service projects.

"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 drug abuse
that led the inmates into prison in the first place, said Dwayne Simpson,
director of the Institute for Behavioral Research and psychology professor
at Texas Christian University.

Simpson studied the effectiveness of treatment programs nationally. The
study showed that 70 percent to 80 percent of all prisoners have drug use
histories and only about 10 percent get help.

Not all states offer treatment or effective treatment programs, though,
Simpson said. The study found that about 75 percent of all untreated
inmates returned to prison within three years and usually within the first
year after being released.

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

Other states that offer the same program as Kentucky include California,
Texas and Delaware.

Inmates at Roederer, which has 180 participants in the rehab program,
recently described it as 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 them 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 in
prison 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.