Pubdate: Thu, 16 Dec 1999 Source: Blade, The (OH) Copyright: 1999 The Blade. Contact: 541 North Superior St., Toledo, OH 43660 Website: http://www.toledoblade.com/ MCCAFFREY TAKES RIGHT TACK It was encouraging to hear the nation's top drug policy official call for a greater emphasis on intervention and treatment as a means of reducing drug-fueled crime in this country. Gen. Barry McCaffrey, often viewed as a hard-liner and criticized for his seeming intractability on drug issues, outlined proposals for drug testing and treatment throughout the criminal justice system. This is an encouraging step forward, and a necessary change of tack. The relationship between drug use and crime is startling. According to General McCaffrey, as many as 85 per cent of prison inmates in this country are there in some measure because of alcohol or drug use. Change the pattern of drug and alcohol abuse, the thinking reasonably goes, and the criminal behavior also will be changed. General McCaffrey's plan is bold - maybe even radical in the eyes of some lawmakers and law enforcement officers - but it is an approach that deserves to be given every opportunity to succeed. It is difficult to disagree with General McCaffrey's assertion that the criminal justice system is a "disaster,'' as he termed it, because it locks up tens of thousands of criminals without treating their drug or alcohol habits. It doesn't take a genius to figure out that if the substance abuse isn't treated, the criminal activity - often undertaken to support a drug habit - will continue. Break the abuse cycle, and it may be possible to break the criminal cycle. Drug treatment programs in prisons will add to the cost of incarceration, possibly by as much as $3,000 per inmate, but that's an investment in lower crime rates in the future, and can be offset by less chance of the same felon spending more time in jail at some later stage. With the prison population likely to reach 2 million if radical steps aren't taken, it is surely time that the "lock 'em up and throw away the key'' brigade starts to rethink its policies. Locking people up is appropriate punishment, but what about rehabilitation? What about trying to reform at least some of those who pass through the prison system so that they won't repeat their criminal behavior? Failure to initiate better rehabilitation and intervention programs will inevitably perpetuate prisons as crowded warehouses in which inmates' substance abuse problems lie dormant, only to reappear on their release. Treatment alone, without punishment, is unwise. Criminals must pay for their crimes, whether or not those crimes were fueled by drugs. But punishment without treatment solves nothing. - --- MAP posted-by: Richard Lake