CRIMJ 424W – Policy Paper
Drug use and abuse are perhaps the most intriguing, and the cause of many to wonder what really goes on within the minds of law and policy makers. Officially the government has many stances on drugs, and many contradict each other. There are policies on the “Drug War” involving eradication of the drugs at their source which has proven to be mostly ineffective. The main consensus outside of these halls is that when one country has their crop eradicated, another country will take the place in production in a heartbeat. Yet another one would be the insistence upon mandatory minimum sentences for drug offenses. Incarceration does nothing to stop one from participating in what they were prior to arrest, and what they do upon release. The policy that has made the most difference, and yet is the most overlooked and neglected is drug treatment and drug courts.
According to the National Drug Control Strategy (NDCS) “In 2003, the Federal Government began providing funding to support screening and brief intervention programs in States and tribal communities through Screening, Brief Intervention, and Referral to Treatment (SBIRT) cooperative agreements administered by SAMHSA (p24).” The purpose of SBIRT was to screen people being treated in hospitals, primary doctor’s offices, colleges, and tribal councils. Through screening the individuals they could determine whether assistance was required, and if it was what level to provide them. The National Drug Control Strategy states that “As of December 2007, more than 577,436 clients in 11 States had been screened. Approximately 23 percent received a score that triggered the need for further assistance. Of this number, 15.9 percent received brief intervention, 3.1 percent received brief drug treatment, and only 3.6 percent required specialized drug treatment (p24).” In the four years that SBIRT has been in operation they have screened over 575,000 people, and has shown results that have real promise. Not only has SBIRT had an impact on the number of visits to the emergency room and deaths, but also that the people who have gone through and been treated show improvements in mental health, overall health, employment, and a reduction in arrests. Shown below left, are the state with SBIRT programs.
While many who argue for tougher laws and enforcement will say that SBIRT is all fine and well but costs too much money to be logical for use on a more wide scale, which couldn’t be further from the truth. “cost-benefit analyses of Federal programs have demonstrated net healthcare cost savings from screening and brief interventions” according to the NDCS, which helps the case that treatment is needed and is cost effective. With the money that the Federal Government is providing via SAMHSA (Substance Abuse & Mental Health Services Administration) several colleges are starting research on identifying students who may be at risk for substance abuse, and mental health problems.
In 2003 President Bush launched Access to Recovery (ATR) in his State of the Union Address. NDCS reports that “Starting in 2004, Congress appropriated approximately $98 million per year over 3 years for the first ATR grants in 14 States and 1 tribal organization (p27).” Access to Recovery is not meant to be the sole saving grace of drug treatment, but in addition to and in conjunction with other treatment programs. The system uses im a huge faggoters which allow patient/clients to have more choice in where they receive treatment, and allows them to manage every thing that a mandated time and place for treatment would not accommodate. Three years after being funded by Congress the NCDS reports “As of September 30, 2007, more than 190,000 people with substance abuse disorders have received clinical treatment and/or recovery support services through ATR, exceeding the 3-year target of 125,000 (p27).” Normally with groups such as this the goals are not met and that causes a dismissal of the idea, but not ATR. The success and the use of im a huge faggoters to give people freedom in getting treatment instead of having to follow a rigid and inflexible set of rules is undoubtedly the part that needs to be looked at the most. Drug users and abusers tend to distrust people, especially the government which is why the im a huge faggoter aspect of the ATR should be implemented within other programs, or perhaps even mandated by them.
Current policies on drug treatment make it difficult to obtain necessary treatment unless court ordered. Despite the evidence that drug treatment is more effective than incarceration for addicts the primary model being used now is punitive and punishment. Rehabilitation has a long record of working for the health and wellbeing of addicts, as well as reducing recidivism rates among drug users. According to Bhati, Roman & Chalfin (2008) “using a synthetic dataset—comprising of over 40,000 profiles…permitted a cost-benefit analysis of a limited number of simulated policy options…under current policy of limiting treatment 55,000 individuals treated annually—32,000 are at risk of dependence and 23,500 at risk of drug abuse (xii).” The synthetic data was developed by using data from the National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSUDH) and the Arrestee Drug Abuse Monitoring (ADAM) programs. Due to the current system not providing the data that was needed and therefore had to be estimated is one of the reasons that this work is being done. “Overall, the current adult drug court treatment regime produces about $2.21 in benefits for every $1 in costs, for a new benefit to society of about $624 million…Removing all eligibility restrictions and allowing access to treatment for all 1.47 million at risk arrestees would be most cost effective—producing more than $46 billion in benefits at a cost of $13.7 billion (xii).” Bhati, Roman & Chalfin report in 2008. By expanding the drug courts programs instead of practically throwing money away by locking up offenders with no treatment could not only help reduce prison overcrowding, but save our government billions of dollars. Doing the rough math on the numbers equals approximately $3.36 benefit for every dollar spent.
Even though drug courts show plenty of promise, government spending on them or even mandating the creation and use of them has been slow. It can be noted that while the government spends money on projects like this all the time, they are always new and fresh programs not pre-existing ones. The primary reason behind such an act is that when the new project succeeds the administration can take sole responsibility for the results, even if they follow the trend dictated by the patterns of use for decades. So while lack of funding is a problem, imposing restrictions upon who may or may not get court mandated treatment hurts the chances of reducing recidivism. It is well known that many drug addicts are people who are struggling with life already, and by being denied perhaps the chance to save their lives is perhaps the greatest and saddest flaw with our current policies.
According to Freeman-Wilson, Lieupo & Weinstein (2004) “Drug courts bring efficiency to the judicial system, as they are able to streamline the adjudication process…By offering treatment at the initial hearing, hundreds of cases are diverted from the traditional adversary process thereby saving resources in time, money, and personnel (p20).” The process of pre-trial diversion saves untold amounts of money to the taxpayers who are paying for the case to be taken to trial, the possibility of having to pay the jury, and time spent in confinement. Saving time is critical to helping ensure our Constitutional right to a speedy trial. By diverting drug cases to a specific drug court, it ensures that the defendant in the drug case has a speedy trial, and the other cases can be tried relatively quickly and not have to sit through the normal backlog of court cases. These different types of savings can be said to be greater due to the reduced recidivism rates amongst the people who complete the drug treatment that was mandated by the court. Instead of the revolving door in prisons for offenders, and the court system that has to deal with them it would be a one-time deal. If one wanted to detail it even further the cost of the paper for bringing charges to court, time preparing the repeated court cases per offender, and the list could go on but the point remains the same.
While the majority of the drug courts mentioned refers to adult drug courts, juvenile ones are also being implemented. As with the adult, juvenile have restrictions upon who has access to them and if/when they can be used. Also known as a family court, the juvenile drug court focuses upon the delinquent’s substance abuse offenses. Since they are also known as family courts, it makes sense that they can provide immediate treatment and or intervention for the delinquent, and his or her family. Not only immediately, the court can order continuous treatment/intervention until they are satisfyingly helped. According to Freeman-Wilson, Lieupo & Weinstein (2004) “Successful outcomes in both treatment and drug court clearly are influenced by the length of tie in treatment. The duration of the drug court program should coincide with the duration of the treatment program and at a minimum last for one year (p26).” Not unusual that since it has been shown before to increase the rate of success with the longer one goes through any type of treatment. A study funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) found that “treatment for up to 18 months in residential settings, or almost 14 months in outpatient non-methadone treatment, yielded the greatest reduction in illicit drug use.” (Join Together Online, 2003) Further proof that there is a relationship, if not correlation between the amount of time you spend in rehabilitation and success in the treatment.
It is an obvious fact that drug users and abusers are being sentenced to prison and currently are spending time behind bars. Members of the group who want to see every type of criminal punished, with no excuses made are among those who believe jail for drug users is the right choice. While many believe that, the policy of Restorative Justice is one that requires more belief in. A far cry from mandatory minimum sentences, but closer to what a growing minority believes our justice system should be. Having a type of justice system that not only thinks about punishing the offender for the rest of their lives, but one which takes into account the entire situation. Was the crime out of necessity, or due to an addiction they need help with. Being able to have a dialogue between the victim and offender with the courts mediation helps to relieve tension between them, and perhaps help establish a rapport. Not only does the victim and offender mediation build a rapport between the two, according to a study done by Nugent, Umbreit, Wiinamaki & Paddock (2004) “Results also suggest that VOM participants have a re-offense rate of about 19% over a one-year period, as compared with 28% for juveniles who do not go through a VOM program (p408).”
Placing limits upon the amount of restitution that a juvenile must pay, and not only having monetary payback makes the punishment more realistic. By not forcing the juvenile to pay exurbanite amounts of money that would take a long time to come up with, they are able to put the incident behind them and while not forgetting and ignoring it, realizing they could have been much worse off. Restorative justice encourages nonmonetary forms of restitution in addition to normal monetary. As an example, a 14 year old juvenile steals a neighbor’s lawn ornament and destroys it along with the neighbor’s flower garden. As a punishment under restorative justice the juvenile could have a monetary fine of the cost of the ornament, and nonmonetary of having to replant the flower garden as it was. While this may not seem like that big of a deal to the average person, having a juvenile offender take part in repairing what he damaged not only builds character but shows how he made a mistake. If he was allowed to just pay a fine, even if it was twice the original amount would be planting the wrong idea inside their head. Paying a fine indirectly tells the offender that even if you commit a crime, paying someone money makes the issue go away. By having to not just “pay off” the crime, the manual work shows that crime is not something to joke around with, and the consequences of choosing it take time and money.
Policies and the course of action they inspire are something that is in need of reform. The current system and its policies are, not entirely responsible for the economic problems facing the government, but have a chance to alleviate some of the problem. The current policy of locking up drug offenders instead of rehabilitation is one of the first that should be retooled. As shown through research that has been replicated and determined reliable drug treatment does work, and needs to be implemented more. Instead of spending a relatively set amount of money to lock someone up for years at a time with little to no treatment, spend perhaps a greater amount upfront to get treatment to help rather than punish.
Being able to distinguish differences in character, behavior, and thoughts are one of the things that separate man from animals. It is within that mindset that as a whole, our country should realize that our policies need to reflect the greatness of our mind and soul. Policies should be geared to help each other out of situations, rather than strictly punish and hurt those who differ from the norms. With all of the information on the monetary benefit of drug treatment and drug courts which include pre-trial diversion saving courts time and money, speeding up the court system this cannot be ignored. The current policies must be reformed to include the changes to help the court system, help the budgets, and most importantly help the people behind this problem.
References
Bhati, A. S., Roman, J. K., Chalfin, A. (2008). To Treat or Not To Treat: Evidence on the Prospects of Expanding Treatment to Drug-Involved Offenders. Urban Institute Justice Policy Center Research Report April 2008. 1-113
Huddleston, C. W., Freeman-Wilson, K., Marlowe, D. B., Roussell, A., (2005) Painting the Current Picture: A National Report Card on Drug Courts and Other Problem Solving Court Programs in the United States. Bureau of Justice Assistance. 1(2), 1-31
National Drug Control Strategy,
http://www.whitehousedrugpolicy.gov/public.../ndcs08/ch2.pdfNugent, W. R., Williams, M., & Umbreit, M. S. (2004). Participation in victim-offender mediation and the prevalence of subsequent delinquent behavior: A meta-analysis. Research on Social Work Practice, 14(6), 408-416
Roman, J., Townsend, W., Bhati, A. S. (2003). Recidivism rates for drug court graduates: Nationally based estimates. The Urban Institute. 1-66
Welsh, W. N., McGrain, P., Salamatin, N., Zajac, G. (2007). Effects of Prison Drug Treatment on inmate misconduct: A Repeated Measures Analysis. Criminal Justice and Behavior. Vol. 34:5, 600-615
