http://www.drugpolicy.org/conference/ Pubdate: Sun, 04 Feb 2001 Source: Hartford Courant (CT) Copyright: 2001 The Hartford Courant Contact: 285 Broad St., Hartford, CT 06115 Fax: (860) 520-6941 Feedback: http://www.hartfordcourant.com/staff/letters.stm Website: http://www.hartfordcourant.com/ Forum: http://chat.courant.com/scripts/webx.exe Author: Dwight F. Blint, The Hartford Courant STRATEGY ON DRUG OFFENDERS SHIFTS Connecticut is ready to join a national trend of sending nonviolent, drug-dependent convicts into community and treatment programs instead of prisons. The change in philosophy is not the result of a growing benevolence on the part of lawmakers and policymakers. It stems from rampant overcrowding across the nation despite years of prison-building, a recognition that harsher sentencing and reduced spending on treatment have failed, and growing taxpayer frustration over the high cost of building and maintaining new prisons. "We have come out of the most expensive prison and jail construction binge that this country has seen," said George Kain, a professor of justice and law administration at Western Connecticut State University. "And what we're beginning to realize is that it's not working." State policymakers recently have proposed a host of initiatives aimed at helping nonviolent and drug-dependent convicts avoid long prison sentences. The cornerstone of a recent proposal by the governor's prison and jail overcrowding commission is the construction of a 500-bed facility called the Community Justice Center. The facility would be used to hold some defendants awaiting trial, provide residential space for parolees who require mental health or sex-offender treatment, and provide a re-entry facility for inmates who have nearly finished serving their sentences. The commission also recommends expansion of drug treatment programs; expansion of assessment programs for parolees; greater judicial discretion; and increasing the number of probation officers. In his budget to be presented this week, Gov. John G. Rowland is expected to request $5 million for the Community Justice Center and $425,000 to expand community-based residential treatment services for nonviolent drug offenders. Kain said studies have shown no evidence to support that longer prison sentences, mandatory minimum sentences and "zero tolerance" and "three-strike" initiatives do anything to lower rates of relapsing to crime. "The reason it doesn't work is because the courts are already tough on crime," Kain said. "We're very good at locking up dangerous people." Kain said the problem is how the criminal justice system treats nonviolent and drug-dependent offenders. In Connecticut, 85 percent of the state's prison population is in need of substance abuse treatment, according to Department of Correction officials. Nationally, parole violators accounted for 35 percent of new prison admissions in 1997, according to the U.S. Department of Justice Bureau of Justice Statistics. The state's growing inmate population, which went from 9,589 in 1990 to 16,766 in 1999, has caused spending to skyrocket. In 1990, the correction department's budget was $187 million. By the 2000 fiscal year, it increased to $484 million. Nationally, the prison population has jumped from 712,000 in 1990 to 1.86 million in 1999. Emphasis On Treatment Some initiatives have shown that treatment is often more cost-effective than incarceration. For example, an Arizona law passed in 1996, mandating drug treatment instead of prison for nonviolent drug offenders, saved the state $2.6 million at the end of the first year. The state at that time found that 78 percent of the offenders tested negative for drugs after completing the program. New York Gov. George E. Pataki is proposing a plan that would shorten prison terms for nonviolent drug offenses, replace mandatory imprisonment with treatment in some cases, and give judges discretion in imposing sentences. Other states, such as California, New Mexico and Massachusetts, also are considering revamping existing drug laws to emphasize treatment. Dr. Brett Rayford, the health and addiction services director for Connecticut's corrections department, said he welcomes the switch. He said the criminal justice system typically fluctuates in 10-year cycles between an emphasis on incarceration and rehabilitation. Policymakers over the past decade had strongly emphasized incarceration because of the introduction of crack-cocaine and the violence that came with it. "Much of the effects of the past 10 years was in response to an epidemic," Rayford said. And, at the time, the best solution seemed to be to build more prisons and create new laws to lock up drug offenders. "But now states are saying, we need a different response," Rayford said. The state legislature's Program Review and Investigations Committee wants lawmakers to remove mandatory minimum sentences so that judges have greater discretion in sentencing. It also wants to increase the use of parole and probation and significantly increase funding for community-based treatment facilities. Renee LaMark Muir, principal analyst for the committee, said any one of these changes would open space in the state's prisons. "Any increase or decrease in prison terms, multiplied by the thousands of people affected, would have a big impact," LaMark Muir said. Who Is Nonviolent? Such a shift in emphasis is not without critics. State Sen. Winthrop Smith Jr., R-Milford, cautions against any dramatic changes in the state criminal justice system. "I think we've done a great job of lowering crime rates," Smith said. "We've got a great policy and this is not the time change it." Smith said if convicts need treatment, they should get it in a correction setting. He questions the cost of staffing, building and developing a network of community-based programs, and how it would be coordinated with parole and probation. "You're potentially talking about the creation of a new state department," Smith said. He says he also believes that keeping drug offenders out of jail could send the wrong message, and he questions what definitions would be used to determine which offenders are nonviolent. On the other hand, Rep. Michael P. Lawlor, D-East Haven, said he sees the shift in focus as encouraging. Lawlor said most lawmakers have known for years that building and filling prisons was not the most cost-effective way for the criminal justice system to operate. But he said they feared appearing soft on crime. Dean Pagani, Rowland's spokesman, said the governor agrees that it is time to reconsider the appropriateness of treating nonviolent drug offenders "as harshly as they've been treated in recent years." - --- MAP posted-by: Richard Lake