cannabisnews.com: McCaffrey's Efforts Against Drug Abuse!





McCaffrey's Efforts Against Drug Abuse!
Posted by FoM on June 26, 1999 at 07:35:58 PT
Source: The Washington File
 WASHINGTON The White House Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP) unveiled the outline of a renewed approach to the policy of contending with illicit drugs on June 25.
 ONDCP Director Barry McCaffrey says drug use and crime are strongly linked and communities need to sever that link by providing more addiction treatment and support programs for criminal offenders. He will invite local officials from across the country to Washington in December for a national conference on developing a strategy to pursue that goal. "Sheer self-interest" should be one of the greatest reasons for communities to expand treatment programs, McCaffrey said as he spoke to reporters on release of the report. Emphasizing the steadily increasing populations in prisons and jails in this country, McCaffrey said: "We ought to do it because we're sick of crime and violence on the streets, and the cost of the current failed social experiment is becoming unbearable." Close to 1.8 million people are incarcerated in the United States, and the ONDCP report projects that figure could increase to more than 2 million by 2002. Add to that number the offenders who are under the supervision of the correctional system in some way, through probation or parole, and the total climbs to approximately 5.6 million adults. The average annual cost of maintaining an inmate is greater than $20,000. Further, the ONDCP report concludes that drug treatment and rehabilitation within the criminal justice system can be effective, and it cites a number of programs around the country which have produced measurable success in helping offenders break the cycle of crime and move on to healthy, productive lives. "The Consultation Document on Substance Abuse and Criminal Justice Policy" also argues that reducing overall substance abuse in America will be achieved by treating the criminal population, and advocates programs to reduce drug use and availability as a means to reduce drug-related crime and to decrease recidivism among drug offenders. The report also urges an increase in the availability of drug treatment. Finally, the report concludes: "It is possible to break the tragic cycle of drugs and crime by reducing drug consumption and recidivism rates among those involved in the criminal justice system." Following are excerpts of the ONDCP report: (begin excerpts) THE WHITE HOUSE OFFICE OF NATIONAL DRUG CONTROL POLICY CONSULTATION DOCUMENT ON SUBSTANCE ABUSE AND CRIMINAL JUSTICE POLICY 1. PURPOSE: The purpose of this consultation document is to facilitate discussion on a national policy and direction regarding the reduction of drug abuse among the offender population in order to reduce levels of crime and other social harms that are the result of drug consumption and trafficking. This consultation document builds on the results of an initial consensus meeting on substance abuse and the criminal justice system held in Washington DC, March 24-25, 1998. The intent is to develop a series of concrete policy recommendations for a National Summit on Enhancing Public Safety through Reducing Substance Abuse Among Offenders in December, 1999 with a view to formalizing those recommendations in a resolution that will be adopted by federal, state, and local authorities. 2. THE STRONG NEXUS BETWEEN DRUG USE, CRIME, AND THE CRIMINAL JUSTICE POPULATION. Drug-dependent individuals are responsible for a disproportionate amount of our nation's violent crimes and income-generating crimes such as robbery, burglary, or theft. Drug-related crime and violence ties up a large percentage of our law enforcement and corrections resources. Incarceration has become one of the dominant responses to crime by drug-involved offenders. Some illustrative facts: Drugs drive crime -- Drugs and drug-using behavior are linked to crime in several ways. Most directly, it is a crime to use, possess, manufacture, or distribute drugs classified as illegal. More broadly, the effects of drug- related behavior -- the generation of violence as the result of drug effects, stealing to get money to buy drugs, violence against rival traffickers -- influence each of us daily. --Expensive drug habits often drive criminal behavior. The Arrestee Drug Abuse Monitoring (ADAM) program shows consistently that between one half and three quarters of all arrestees tested in thirty-five cities around the country have drugs in their system at the time of arrest. About a fifth of all arrestees test positive for more than one drug. About half of those charged with violent crimes or income-generating crimes such as robbery, burglary or theft test positive for more than one drug. . . . Drug-law offenders are filling our jails and prisons at great expense -- The nation's incarcerated population is now close to 1.8 million. By 2002, this figure could reach 2.1 million. The United States is second to only Russia in the number of prisoners per capita among industrialized nations. -- During 1997, there were approximately 5.6 million adults -- 2.1 percent of the nation's population -- under correctional supervision (that is incarceration, probation, or parole). Additionally, 108,746 juveniles were incarcerated in public or private juvenile facilities. Drug offenders accounted for 23 percent of the State prison population in 1995, up from 6 percent in 1980, and 60 percent of the Federal population in 1997, up from 25 percent in 1980. This increase in the drug offender prison population mirrors the steady increase in arrests for drug offenses. The FBI reports 1,351,400 arrests for drug offenses (9.2 percent of all arrests) in 1994; 1,476,100 (9.8 percent of all arrests) in 1995; and 1,506,200 (9.9 percent of all arrests) in 1996. . . . --The National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse (CASA) estimates that of the $38 billion in correctional expenditures in 1996, more than $30 billion was spent incarcerating individuals who had a history of drug and/or alcohol abuse, were convicted of drug and/or alcohol violations, were high on drugs and/or alcohol at the time of their crime, or committed their crime to get money to buy drugs. -- The average cost per year to incarcerate an inmate in the United States is $20,674; the Federal cost is $23,542, and the State average is $19,801. Annual average costs among local jail systems varied widely from $7,848 to $60,590. 3. THE CRIMINAL JUSTICE SYSTEM IS A LOGICAL PLACE TO INFLUENCE THE BEHAVIOR OF DRUG USERS, YET THIS POTENTIAL IS NOT BEING EXPLOITED. -- Many chronic users of cocaine, heroin, and methamphetamine are arrested in the course of any given year. When not incarcerated, many in this hard-core addict/offender group remain under the jurisdiction of the criminal justice system either on probation or parole. -- Chronic drug users consume perhaps two-thirds of the cocaine, heroin, and methamphetamine consumed in the United States. Reducing their number is a sure way of decreasing the amount of drugs consumed, the size of illegal drug markets, and the number of dealers. -- Only a quarter of incarcerated drug users were previously in treatment. The number of drug-using arrestees who require treatment may exceed two million a year. Between 60 and 75 percent of untreated parolees with histories of cocaine and/or heroin use are reported to return to those drugs within three months of release. . . . William L. Murphy, former president of the National District Attorneys Association, makes the case for using the criminal justice system to break the cycle of drugs and crime: "Simply warehousing prisoners, without regard to addressing and dealing with the underlying problem of substance abuse, produces unending taxpayer costs. Longer prison terms -- without treatment, training, and follow-up -- make matters even worse. Such practices breed the statistics that feed the system. They don't prevent or seek to put an end to crime." Sooner or later, most hard-drug addicts wind up under the jurisdiction of the criminal justice system. The criminal justice system can become a powerful tool for motivating addict-offenders to quit on their own if they can, or to enter, comply with, and remain in treatment if they need to. That is the idea underlying drug diversion, drug courts, and coerced abstinence programs. Together, these programs offer good prospects for actually shrinking the hard-drug markets, reducing the criminal activity of hard-core users, and improving addicts' lives by keeping them out of prison and reducing, if not ending, their drug abuse. One of the National Drug Control Strategy's five goals is to increase the safety of America's citizens by substantially reducing drug-related crime and violence. If we can break the cycle of drug abuse and crime, we should be able to achieve this goal while reducing the number of incarcerated Americans. Providing drug-dependent criminal justice populations with both adequate supervision and appropriate treatment and rehabilitation services is therefore essential. 4. TREATMENT AND REHABILITATION WITHIN THE CRIMINAL JUSTICE SYSTEM WORKS. Evaluated as a crime-control measure alone, providing drug treatment for criminally active addicts is strikingly cost-effective. It offers the potential of reducing criminal activity by about two-thirds at about 10 percent of the cost of a prison cell. A wide variety of programs are demonstrating their effectiveness nationally and at the state and local levels. Our challenges are to share information about programmatic success horizontally and vertically so that law enforcement and correctional agencies can replicate success, inform policy makers about these successes to expand fiscal support, and inform the public that these programs do contribute to reduced drug use and crime. a. Initial consensus meeting on Substance Abuse and the Criminal Justice System. Held in Washington, D.C. March 24-25, 1998, this meeting underscored that expert opinion is unanimous about the efficacy of demand reduction, especially within the context of the criminal justice system. The meeting's objective was to focus researcher, practitioner, and policy maker attention on the question "How can we most effectively deal with drug-dependent offenders -- what works?"(14) Two hundred and thirty experts in criminal justice and treatment, researchers, practitioners, scholars -- including physicians, judges, and federal officials -- joined Attorney General Reno, HHS Secretary Shalala, and ONDCP Director McCaffrey to consider this policy challenge. Distinguished scientists and subject matter experts who contributed included Douglas Anglin, Ph.D., Joseph Califano and Steven Belenko, Ph.D., of the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University, Faye Taxman, Ph.D., Associate Research Professor, University of Maryland, Kenneth Winters, Ph.D., Center for Adolescent Substance Abuse, University of Minnesota, James Inciardi, Ph.D., Professor and Director, Center for Drug and Alcohol Studies, University of Delaware, Dr. George DeLeon, Dr. Gary Field, Dr. Douglas Lipton, Dr. Dwayne Simpson and Dr. James Swartz. . . . b. Established programs and promising programs. The following programs have demonstrated the effectiveness of CJS-based diversion, coerced abstinence, and treatment programs: (1) Diversions programs. The Treatment Alternatives to Street Crime (TASC) program. Created in the early 1970s, TASC has demonstrated that the coercive authority of the criminal justice system can be used to get individuals into treatment and to have drug-abusing offenders managed safely and effectively in the community. TASC's aim is to provide a bridge between the criminal justice system and the drug treatment community. Through TASC, some drug offenders are diverted out of the criminal justice system and into community-based supervision, others receive treatment as a part of probation, and still others are received into transitional services as they leave an institutional program. Community- based treatment and rehabilitation services are provided in concert with criminal justice sanctions and procedures that reinforce each other. TASC then monitors the client's progress and compliance, including expectations for abstinence, employment and improved personal and social functioning. The progress of the individual in treatment is reported to the referring criminal justice agency." (2) Drug Courts and Coerced Treatment programs. Drug courts. Title V of the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994 (P.L. 103-322) authorizes the Attorney General to make grants to states and local units of government to establish drug courts. As of October 1, 1998 there were 323 drug courts operating nationwide and over 200 in the planning stages, up from the dozen that existed in 1994. Drug courts seek to reduce drug use and associated criminal behavior by engaging and retaining drug-involved offenders in programmatic and treatment services. Defendants who complete the drug court program either have their charges dismissed (in a diversion or pre-sentence model) or their probation sentences reduced (in a post-sentence model). More than 100,000 persons have entered drug courts, 70 percent of whom have either graduated or remain as active participants. A recent scholarly review of thirty evaluations addressing twenty-four drug courts" concluded that: -- Drug courts are able to engage and retain felony offenders in programmatic and treatment services. Only 26 percent of drug court participants have been in prior substance abuse treatment, while 72 percent had been in jail or prison. Sixty percent of those who enter drug courts are still in treatment after one year, roughly double the retention rate for most community treatment programs. -- Drug courts provide more comprehensive and closer supervision than other community programs. . . . (3) Correctional treatment and community follow-up programs. The Federal Bureau of Prisons' Drug Treatment program. The Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) provides drug treatment to all eligible inmates prior to release from Bureau custody. The number of institutions offering residential treatment has grown from 32 to 42 since FY 1994. In FY 1997 nearly 3 1,000 inmates participated in Bureau treatment programs (education, 12,960; non-residential, 4,733; residential, 7,895; community transition, 5,315). A study conducted by the Bureau of Prisons (BOP) and the National institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) examined the effects of treatment during the first six months after release from Bureau custody. This is significant because recidivism is generally highest within the first year of release. The study evaluated the impact of the BOP program as constituted before December 31, 1995. Program refinements and improvements made since that time would likely result in even more positive results. Major conclusions of the study included: -- The treatment population was 73 percent less likely to be re-arrested than the comparison group. 3.3 percent re-arrested versus 12.1 percent. -- The treatment population was 44 percent less likely to use drugs than the he comparison group. 20.5 percent used drugs versus 36.7 percent. . . . 4) Testing and Sanctions programs. Breaking the Cycle. This program is a collaborative effort among ONDCP, the National Institute of Justice (NIJ), the Bureau of Justice Assistance, the Office of Justice Programs' drug courts program, the National Institute on Drug Abuse and the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration's (SAMHSA's) Center for Substance Abuse Treatment (CSAT). It is a national laboratory for determining whether early intervention and mandated addiction treatment can turn around the lives of offenders. Breaking the Cycle (BTC) encompasses the integrated application of testing, assessment, referral, supervision, treatment and rehabilitation planning and delivery, routine progress reporting to maintain informed judicial oversight, graduated sanctions for noncompliance, relapse prevention training and skill building, and structured transition back into the mainstream community. The Birmingham, AL pilot program began operation in June 1997 and targets offenders charged with drug possession and/or forged prescriptions. Since its inception, nearly 2,000 offenders have been assessed and admitted to the program. In May 1998, over 1,600 drug tests were administered to BTC participants. In July, the program reached full implementation with all offenders required to participate as a condition of their release from jail. The National Institute of Justice is evaluating the program. The program was expanded in November 1998 to Jacksonville, FL and Tacoma, WA. Eugene, OR has been invited to submit a proposal under a separate juvenile Breaking The Cycle program. Preliminary BTC results are encouraging. All offenders in the program receive drug screenings within forty-eight hours of arrest. Since June 1997, 91 percent of offenders in the program have tested positive for some form of substance use. Most who test positive agree to treatment services even before they appear in court. The program has achieved about a 70 to 85 percent compliance rate, which means that most participants are following through on their treatment and legal appointments Those completing the program have exhibited about a 1-percent rearrest rate so far. . . . .5.OBJECTIVES. We need to be clear about our overarching objective -- we must reduce substance abuse in America. Since frequent drug users who are involved in the criminal justice system consume the vast majority of cocaine, heroin, and methamphetamine consumed in the entire nation, by focusing efforts on this population, we can substantially reduce the national incidence of drug abuse. The fact is, we have yet to harness the full potential of the criminal justice system to lessen the incidence of drug abuse and recidivism among the offender population. This is an opportunity lost. We must, therefore, increase the understanding by policy makers (legislators, governors, budget directors, judges, correctional administrators, treatment professionals, and public health administrators) and key stakeholders of what can be done to reduce drug abuse and recidivism among those subject to the criminal justice system. Our intermediate objectives are to: -- Inform policy makers and key stakeholders of the potential pay-offs that can re result from harnessing the coercive powers of the criminal justice system to reduce drug use and attendant criminal behavior. -- Employ the coercive powers of the criminal justice system in a parsimonious, fair, and outcome-producing manner to strengthen in the life of the offender, the naturally occurring powers of family, work, positive peer pressures, and neighbors -- the informal social controls -- that influence behavior. -- Bridge the gap between researchers and practitioners. -- Highlight established and successful demand-reduction programs within the criminal justice system. -- Forge a new relationship between criminal justice policy and drug treatment policy at the state and local levels. -- Accelerate the expansion, within the criminal justice system, of interventions that reduce drug use and enhance safety. -- Craft a national criminal justice policy that explicitly adopts the goal of reducing drug abuse among offenders under supervision in order to enhance public safety, public health, and decrease public expenditures. -- Expand pretrial drug testing programs to all districts in the federal court system. -- Identify all non-violent drug users in the federal system before trial and divert as many as possible to less costly substance abuse treatment programs. -- Subject all seriously drug-abusing offenders under CJS supervision to frequent drug testing with swift and automatic sanction for each incident of detected drug use, with treatment for those who want it or prove unable to quit without it. . . . CONCLUSION. Five fundamental, research-based propositions should form the basis for development of a new relationship between criminal justice policy and drug treatment policy in correctional institutions and settings: First, we know that treatment works. Second, we know that coerced treatment works. Third, we know that length of time in treatment is correlated with successful treatment. Fourth, we know that treatment under post-release supervision is essential to successful treatment in prison. Fifth, we know that frequent drug testing with swift and predictable sanctions for continued drug use can reduce drug consumption among offender populations. The corrections profession and treatment profession must come together in common purpose to reduce drug abuse among the offender population in order to reduce crime. It is possible to break the tragic cycle of drugs and crime by reducing drug consumption and recidivism rates among those involved in the criminal justice system. We must accelerate the development and fielding of programs that offer alternatives to imprisonment for selected non-violent drug law offenders. We must expand treatment availability both for drug-dependent inmates and those who are not incarcerated yet remain under the supervision of the criminal justice while on probation or parole. By doing so, we can slowly and eventually reverse the trend that will otherwise result in hundreds of thousands of additional Americans behind bars. The end result will be fewer addicts and drug users, less demand for drugs, less drug trafficking, less drug-related crime and violence, and fewer people locked up. We can only succeed in reaching this destination if we remained focused on the desired outcomes. We seek nothing less than a significant decrease in the incidence of substance abuse in our country. This consultation document identifies the offender population under the jurisdiction of the criminal justice system as a logical place to work towards that end. That population of perhaps three million constitutes a significant proportion of the total U.S. chronic drug user population. They consume the majority of the cocaine, heroin, and methamphetamine consumed in the United States, and are responsible for a disproportionate amount of violent and property crimes. Finally, they are subject to disciplinary control of their activities. We have not only an opportunity, but an obligation as well, to help them break away from their addictive habits. This consultation document outlines the ways in which this can be done. It is time now to develop a public policy that results in our desired end state -- fewer addicts, less substance abuse, and less crime in America.
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Comment #1 posted by Margie on April 08, 2000 at 16:57:50 PT:
Treatment in Prison
I am a former consumer of the correctional services and have been since 13 years old. I am a product of the system and it took me a very long time to be able to change my thinking through the help of a whole lot of people who saw the potential in methat had been buried in California institutions for over 27 years. People who believed in me. I was the first woman in the State of California who was sentenced under the 3 Strikes Your Out Law and given a suspended sentence of 42 years and 4 months and allowed to go to Delancey Street Foundation for the next couple of years. Yes, I know that treatment works if it is a nudge from the judge or divine intervention, it works. I agree with you there. I have a responsibility to society and to this population to leave the door open and that is what I do on a daily basis. God has chosen to put me in a job that allows me to go back into prisons, jails and correctional settings all over the country. Some of the things I see as a huge problem are 1) that there are a lot of women who do not fit the criteria to go into these treatment units within the prisons,and alot of these women are who keep the cycle and the insanity going and pass it along to their children who are being born in prison and first termers. 2) there are only a handful of treatment facilities in our country available and then those are limited to a certain number of beds. 3) When they are lucky enough or fit the criteria to go into treatment they then are allowed to mix with the general population which leaves them teetering on the fence, one foot in and one foot out.This is a huge obstacle because they are once again put back into high risk situations, trigger events,old using buddies, old relationships, new relationships, peer pressure and reverting back to old behaviors.This culture drives performance, it drove mine for most of my life even when I paroled, it was my comfort zone, my world where I felt like I fit in and was accepted. I had no social skills and knew no-one who didn't use.4) There needs to be an assessment team in ad/seg for when the inmates get arrested inside the prison and are sent to ad/seg you can then assess their needs and then put them in treatment. This is a whole community inside prisons and the whole family system is set up, societal values and norms. The sexual abuse, domestic violence etc. If we want and desire change then we must open our eyes and look into our own belief systems about this population. This one woman followed me and told me we need a detox, she was a woman who had come in young and still is and got caught up in the drug scene and is now in treatment but that is 256 women in a prison of 3,5000 and then one the same size across the street. I came in when I was 22 and there was 500 women in the State of CA. and CRC period and have watched it cycle out of control. We were transported to a mens prison in a state of emergency because there was not enough room to house all of us and then into Chowchilla and now another one is built across the street and there will be another and another if we do not start to take an honest look at this situation and then take serious measures. The situation is so saddening to me. I went and spoke at CCWF/VSPW, a prison I had paroled out of and saw a lot of my friends, some who had not been out for 20 plus and others who had come back under the 3 Strikes Law, and some that I remember when they had come to prison did not even use IV heroin. I felt like I had went back into the war zone and they were still there on the front line and I was free to go and I could not take them with me. Talk about feeling powerless I can not remember a time I felt so disillusioned and sad. One woman I asked, do you want to do something different and this was a woman I had did a lot of time with, my friend, and she looked at me and said I don't even know how, I came back with 20, I'm hooked, sick right now and have lost every good day of that. When they had called her over to invite her to hear me speak she did not even want to come until I got on the phone and said her name. I stand ready to help in whatever way I can. I believe in myself and I believe I make a differnce today and I am up and making that difference, at times it is very discouraging but I do believe that change is possible and so I show up wherever I can and let people see that change is possible the lie is dead we do recover. Thank you for asking for feedback and looking for solutions. Who better to go back in than the people who set the mines in the first place and I set a lot of mines.
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