DRUGS TREATMENT

Brooklyn District Attorney Charles Hynes talks in today's newspaper about
the success New York City has had in cutting crime.

He attributes that success to the introduction of sentencing rules that
require people with drugs convictions to undergo long-term residential
treatment programmes.

"We had 750 murders a year and 170,000 index crimes, which are the seven
most serious types of crime like murder, rape, grand theft auto," he said
of New York crime in 1990.

"But now there are just 240 murders and under 60,000 serious crimes a year
and it's related directly to the reduction of drugs in our community."

Of course, it has been said that victory has a thousand fathers but defeat
is an orphan, and the dramatic decline in New York crime has been
attributed to many people and programmes.

But Mr. Hynes must be right that reduced drug abuse has a direct
correlation to reduced crime.

It also makes sense that long-term residential treatment programmes will
have more success in helping drug abusers to get clean and to stay clean.

Bermuda has only two or three residential programmes and none last longer
than 90 days.

Two of the facilities, Fair Haven and Camp Spirit, have had their share of
controversy in recent years. Another residential halfway house, Jerry's
House, never got off the ground, largely as a result of neighbourhood protests.

But if the Alternatives to Incarceration scheme is to work then Mr. Hynes'
comments should be taken seriously.

The premise of the New York Drug Treatment Alternative-to-Prison Programme
- - that defendants would return to society in a better position to resist
drugs and crime after treatment than if they had spent a comparable time in
prison at nearly twice the cost - is the same as ATI, which aims to stop
the entrance to Westgate being a revolving door.

To be sure, drugs are so insidious, and human nature so weak, that not all
people will emerge from a programme drug-free, no matter how long it is.
But for many people, 90 days is just not long enough to give them the tools
and the strength to stay clean.

And there are many criminals who are sentenced to much longer than 15
months or two years who would benefit from a longer (and cheaper) programme
outside of prison.

Drug Court Coordinator Calvin Ming rightly points out the major challenges
for long term treatment programmes.

Costs - which would inevitably be higher than Brooklyn - would be a factor.

But the costs of not doing something of this kind are immeasurably greater:
More people going in and out of prison, more crime, more illness, more
deaths. Nor is there any doubt that the not-in-my-backyard (Nimby) syndrome
would be a major stumbling block.

But the fact is that Fair Haven did not face major neighbourhood protests
when it moved to Smith's Parish and there are thousands of people who have
been affected directly or indirectly by the damage that drugs inflicts.

Surely there would be enough to override the concerns of those who would
oppose it.

Bermuda has missed opportunities in the past to really deal with the drugs
problem. And there have been plenty of "foreign experts" telling Bermuda
how to solve the problem. Mr. Hynes may be foreign, but in this case he is
right and Bermuda should heed his advice.