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.
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