PRISONS REEVALUATING ONE-STRIKE DRUG TEST POLICY

Alabama's Department of Corrections is evaluating the state's prison
drug-testing system. The system has undergone few alterations since its
inception. Brian Corbett, a spokesman for the Department of Corrections,
says the evaluation is part of the Department's house-keeping duties, a
spring cleaning of its policies and standards.

"It's just like with any other business," Corbett said, "sometimes you have
to evaluate what you're doing in your business to make sure things are
operating efficiently."

However, the DOC has received numerous complaints about the accuracy of the
testing system.

UAB justice sciences professor Fred Smith finds fault with the system's
method of confirmation.

"In Alabama prisons, they're doing a screening test but not a confirmation
test," Smith said. "The screening test eliminates the negatives, but
doesn't confirm the positives."

When employees take a drug test at their place of occupation, a
confirmation test is required to ensure the accuracy of the initial
screening test, Smith said. Other organizations allow for a margin of
error, even re-testing.

That's not so in Alabama's prisons.

Inmates who test positive do not get the benefit of a confirmation of a
positive result that could cost them parole or work-release opportunities.

In an earlier interview with Carla Crowder of the Birmingham News, Smith
said that inmates who feel they have been victimized by the testing system
do not have the option of appealing.

"Prisoners have no recourse to refute these potentially erroneous results,"
Smith said. "When a person is accused of drug use, it destroys their
confidence in the system."

Prisoners rely on representative lawyers from organizations that specify in
defending prisoner rights, such as the Birmingham Work Release Center and
the Southern Center for Human Rights. Both have represented female inmates
from Alabama with concerns about the reliability of DOC drug tests.

The possibility of a false positive drug test is unrefuted. At least one
out of every one hundred screening tests is wrong, according to Smith.

"It is possible to come up with a false positive on a drug test," the DOC's
Corbett said. "That's the reason for the evaluation. We want to ensure that
doesn't happen."

Corbett challenges prisoner complaints about inaccuracy.

"They're just accusations," Corbett said. "But we don't want to displace
those accusations without evaluating them, which is what we're doing."

In 2003, of the 121,066 drug tests performed on prisoners and staff
members, 2,141 tested positive for illegal drugs or alcohol.

That's a drop in positive tests from the previous year's 3,769, Corbett said.

"One point five percent is a very low rate in terms of positive drug
tests," Corbett said. He attributes the rate's decrease to an "aggressive
drug treatment program."

UAB's Smith said the best way to improve the system is to do both screening
and confirmation testing.

"That's not very expensive," he said. "It's under $10 a sample, which is
cheaper than housing someone in prison for just one day."