Pubdate: Sun, 21 Sep 2003 Source: Roanoke Times (VA) Copyright: 2003 Roanoke Times Contact: http://www.roanoke.com/roatimes/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/368 Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/rehab.htm (Treatment) THE PRACTICAL CASE FOR DRUG TREATMENT With prison costs growing and money scarce, Virginia should make full use of effective and far cheaper weapons, especially treatment and support services, against drug-related crime. THE LOGIC of these numbers is hard to beat: Cost of locking someone up in a Virginia state prison: around $25,000 a year. Cost of treating the substance abuse that helps land 40 percent of convicts in prison: around $2,500 a year. Cost of the drug courts that resolve nonviolent drug cases without incarceration: around $4,000 a year. Department of Corrections budget in 2003: $790 million. Current Virginia prison population: 33,000. Projected Virginia prison population by 2012: 45,000. Current population of local jails: 17,000. Projected population of local jails by 2012: 24,000. Percentage of Virginia inmates serving time for non-violent crimes involving drug possession or dealing: 26 percent. Percentage of violent crimes committed under the influence of drugs, including alcohol: 25 percent. Recidivism rates for inmates sent to prison for drugs: 43.5 percent after one year; 58.6 percent after two. Recidivism rates for those sent to drug courts and getting treatment, testing and close supervision instead of prison: 16.4 percent and 27.5 percent. Ponder those numbers for a moment, especially in light of the state's ongoing budget problems, and they point to an obvious conclusion: Spending the money for drug-abuse treatment and convict support services will save money over the long term by cutting drug-related crime and the costs to victims, the economy and the corrections system. For wholly practical reasons, Virginia should aggressively offer such programs as an alternative to incarceration for nonviolent offenders and as a way to keep convicts released from prison from returning to the behavior that contributed to their crimes. Talk about your no-brainers, right? Well, no. Faced with revenue shortfalls, Gov. Mark Warner and the General Assembly essentially threw programs that help get and keep people away from drugs and crime - the drug courts and the PAPIS (Pre- and Post-Incarceration Services), Virginia CARES and Substance Abuse Reduction Effort support programs - out of the state budget and into a tenuous reliance on federal matching funds and voluntary money from strapped localities. Despite its notable success - a recidivism rate of only 7 percent - even the pioneering Roanoke drug court has an uncertain future. If those programs wither or vanish, more people will end up behind bars - or back behind bars. So as another election and another budget crisis approach, Virginians should ask candidates a couple of tough questions: Did these budget cuts really save money? Or would savings actually come from expanding the programs? They should also ask why the state doesn't turn to an obvious funding source: higher liquor prices. Alcohol abuse contributes to more crime than all illegal drugs combined, including 40 percent of murders. The next budget will require difficult calls, but this isn't one of them. - --- MAP posted-by: Doc-Hawk