TREAT INMATES' ADDICTIONS

Florida Should Restore Funding Of Drug Programs

Addiction is a disastrous thing, but Rush Limbaugh is a lucky man in one
respect: He can afford rehabilitation therapy for his drug habit. Thousands
of offenders in Florida's jails and prisons aren't so fortunate.

For them, substance-abuse treatment is often out of reach, even when
they've been ordered to get it. The state doesn't fund enough program slots
to accommodate the thousands of offenders who need help.

Even in good times, Florida was far from generous in funding drug and
alcohol treatment. But in the fiscal crunch of the past two years, the
dollars haven't even matched inflation, much less population growth.
Millions of dollars have been slashed from the Department of Corrections'
treatment budget.

Southwest Florida's 12th Judicial Circuit is among those feeling the
impact. The cuts are exacerbating a treatment shortage that is resulting in
longer jail stays, fewer sentencing options and a court backlog. At
Sarasota's First Step treatment center (which contracts with the DOC),
funding for offender programs was cut 22 percent, state officials said. Not
surprisingly, First Step's waiting list for those programs grew -- to 70
people -- forcing some resentencings.

Nothing good happens when people don't get treatment. If they sit in jail
instead of residential rehab, they soak up $21,527 a year in incarceration
costs (that's Sarasota County Jail's average; prison can be far more
expensive). When they eventually get out of jail, the untreated take their
substance-abuse problems with them, putting public safety at risk.

It's estimated that 80 percent of criminal activity in Florida is "driven
by drugs," James McDonough, director of the Governor's Office of Drug
Control, said in 2000. With the problem comes "the breakdown of communities
and families," he added.

Crime and social decay are extremely expensive, both in dollar and human
terms. Treatment is an important way to curtail these troubles, but state
lawmakers tend to fund prisons at the expense of substance- abuse programs
- -- a Catch-22 approach, because drug and alcohol problems drive up the
prison population.

As McDonough points out, "Even without the influx of new addicts, Florida
is faced with the problem of reducing the already significant number of
addicts present in our population, which will continue to grow unless we
can get treatment to them."

That's the word from the governor's drug czar. Are legislators and the
governor listening? If so, they will restore funding for the DOC's
programs. Addictions don't recede in harsh economic times. Neither should
treatment.