Pubdate: Sun, 16 Mar 2008
Source: Observer, The (UK)
Copyright: 2008 The Observer
Contact:  http://www.observer.co.uk/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/315
Author: Mark Townsend, crime correspondent
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/prison.htm (Incarceration)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/rehab.htm (Treatment)

JAIL 'NOT THE SOLUTION' TO DRUG CRIME

Convicted drug users should not be sent to prison because it does 
more harm than good, a report from the influential UK Drug Policy 
Commission will say tomorrow. Up to 65,000 prisoners in England and 
Wales are thought to be problem drug users and, of these, two-thirds 
are convicted of less serious crimes such as shoplifting and 
burglary. The commission believes these offenders should not be jailed.

Although the report accepts that almost a third of heroin and crack 
users arrested admit to committing an average of one crime a day, it 
says that community treatment programmes would be more effective than prison.

The UK Drug Policy Commission, chaired by Dame Ruth Runciman, is 
expected to express concerns that drug treatment programmes in 
prisons have not worked and that inmates risk infection from 
blood-borne viruses.

The report arrives as the problem of drug use in prison appears to be 
increasing, with results from random tests revealing that heroin use 
is now more widespread than cannabis.

This week's report is also expected to be highly critical of how 
little known is about the effectiveness of drug treatment programmes 
in prisons, despite a UKP330m investment by government.

No evaluations have been conducted to establish whether drug-free 
wings and programmes based on cognitive behavioural therapy work.

With the prison population at a record high of nearly 82,000, the 
commission says that the inherent pressures have created an 
environment unlikely to be 'conducive to recovery'.
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