Pubdate: Mon, 17 Apr 2006
Source: Age, The (Australia)
Copyright: 2006 The Age Company Ltd
Contact:  http://www.theage.com.au/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/5
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?136 (Methadone)

PRISON METHADONE 'SAVES MONEY'

Prisoners who stay on methadone treatment programs for eight months 
or more are less likely than other heroin-addicted inmates to return 
to jail, at least in the short-term, Australian researchers say.

A four-year study of almost 400 heroin users in NSW jails has 
prompted the researchers to call for an expansion of methadone 
programs in Australian prisons.

They said broadening the programs to include more prisoners would 
substantially save taxpayers' money.

The researchers found the risk for released prisoners to end up back 
in jail decreased the longer they stayed on methadone treatment.

"Compared to periods of no treatment, the risk of re-incarceration 
was reduced by 70 per cent during methadone maintenance treatment 
periods for eight months or longer," they wrote in the journal, Addiction.

"Longer, and by implication uninterrupted, periods of methadone 
maintenance treatment significantly delayed re-incarceration, 
reflecting reduced criminal activity in released subjects."

Study author Kate Dolan, of the National Drug and Alcohol Research 
Centre at the University of NSW, said the price of methadone 
treatment for one inmate was around $3,200, yet keeping them in jail 
for a year if they returned to prison was about $64,000.

That means methadone treatment only needs to keep a person out of 
jail for 20 days to be more than cost-effective.

"Methadone is very effective and actually quite cheap when you 
consider what it costs to put a person in jail for a year," Associate 
Professor Dolan said.

"What it says to me is that we should be increasing methadone 
programs in prison.

"If they keep on methadone, they stay on the straight and narrow. 
They need to be on it eight months ... to stabilise themselves. They 
settle down and they start to study or perhaps get a job in prison, 
owning up to their responsibilities."

Prof Dolan said in NSW alone, half of the 8,000 prisoners were heroin 
injectors, yet less than a quarter of these were on methadone treatment.

"We have about one in three drug injectors in the community on 
methadone so we should be aiming for at least that in prison," she said.
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