TREAT ADDICTIONS TO END CYCLE OF CRIME

State And Local Governments Should Devote More Resources To Helping
Offenders Break The Substance Abuse Patterns Underlying Their Criminal Behavior

Some people seem addicted to lawbreaking: They commit crimes, do their
time, then get out and soon end up in trouble again.

Addiction may in fact play a big role in Wisconsin crime. By most
estimates, at least 70 percent of the men and women who enter Wisconsin
prisons each year have a problem with drugs or alcohol. National surveys
say at least two offenders in five were under the influence of drugs or
alcohol when they committed their crimes. For certain crimes, such as
murder and sexual assault, the percentage is even higher.

Clearly, to cut crime and its costs and consequences, state and local
governments should devote more resources to helping offenders break the
substance abuse patterns underlying their criminal behavior.

This is not to suggest that criminal offenders are victims who should be
let off the hook for their crimes. But along with getting the punishment
they deserve, inmates need to get help breaking a cycle that costs all of
us -- not only as potential crime victims but through the high taxpayer
expenses of policing, courts, prisons and related services.

Policymakers' decade-long focus on punishment over crime prevention has
proven shortsighted and expensive. State officials now hope to renew the
prison system's focus on rehabilitation. But besides stepping up education
and basic job training to offenders, that welcome change in philosophy must
include expanded drug and alcohol treatment programs in prison and after
release.

Drug and alcohol treatment is offered at most Wisconsin medium- and
minimum-security prisons. But the programs often have long waiting lists.
In many cases, offenders get out of prison before they get into treatment
- -- and then only to get on a new waiting list for community-based programs.

Complicating matters, the Department of Corrections doesn't compile any
data on the success rate of program participants, making it harder to
determine the cost-effectiveness of such programs. Nevertheless, common
sense suggests that getting criminals off bottle and needle will raise
their chances of staying out of trouble. And such help needs to continue
after prison, too, when former inmates working to overcome addictions
return to neighborhoods where alcohol and illegal drugs are easily obtained.

Reporter Phil Brinkman's in-depth Wisconsin State Journal series, "Conning
Ourselves," suggests a range of ways to address ex-inmates' substance abuse:

* Add money for treatment services to cut down on waiting lists.

* Reduce caseloads for probation and parole agents so they can intervene early.

* Make services more easily accessible to users.

* Give judges more options to order treatment.

Lawmakers have tended to focus on punishment over crime prevention tactics,
but there are recent signs of progress: Last spring, Republicans pushed a
bill to give judges the power to order someone to undergo treatment without
going to prison. This measure alone could save the state millions of
dollars in prison costs.

Republicans and Democrats must work together to shed tough old habits and
resist temptations to goad each other as "soft on crime" for promoting
nontraditional approaches that promise safer communities at lower costs. As
part of a stronger community-based corrections system more focused on
rehabilitation, Wisconsin must address the substance abuse problems
underlying much of state crime.