Jail option jars backers of drug care

Sacrament Bee ^ | 7/3/3 | Laura Mecoy

[SmithL]

LOS ANGELES -- Oliver Hamilton says he wasn't afraid of jail: He was afraid of change.

Two years ago, the San Diego Navy veteran overcame his fears and his 36-year drug and alcohol addiction with the help of Proposition 36, the ballot measure requiring treatment instead of prison for nonviolent drug offenders.

Today, the 49-year-old warehouse manager is fighting a bill the governor plans to sign this week that rewrites the initiative. It would allow judges to impose short-term jail sentences for recalcitrant drug offenders who refuse to comply with their court-ordered treatment.

"Really, no addict is afraid of jail," Hamilton said. "Put them in inpatient programs. That's what works."

But treatment hasn't worked for three out of four of the first- and second-time drug offenders sentenced to recovery programs under Proposition 36 since it went into effect July 1, 2001.

They never showed up for their court-ordered programs or they dropped out of those programs.

So a task force of prosecutors, public defenders, judges and treatment professionals proposed the short-term jail sentences and other changes in the initiative in hopes of getting more addicts into treatment and off drugs.

Lawmakers adopted the revisions last week in Senate Bill 1137. Now Proposition 36's authors are planning to sue the state.

"It would reverse the intent of Prop. 36," said Margaret Dooley, Drug Policy Alliance Proposition 36 outreach director. "It would take Prop. 36 from (mandating) treatment instead of incarceration, and make it (require) treatment and incarceration."

California Public Defenders Association President Barry Melton called the Drug Policy Alliance's views "absurd."

He said drug offenders go to prison now on the "installment plan" because the ones who don't complete treatment usually end up behind bars.

[goldstategop]

Its common sense.... you need to wield a stick softly while you offer the carrot. Some people won't change and need a push to do the right thing or won't change, period and need to go to jail. Does anything more need to be said?

(The Palestinian terrorist regime is the crisis and Israel's fist is the answer.)

[Smogger]

"If you give them a quick wake-up call, you will see they will get into treatment," he said. "And, even more importantly, they will stay in treatment."

I was going to say the same thing about the carrot and the stick, but you beat me to it. I like Prop 36. I voted for it. It's inexpensive and with some teeth it could be a lot more effective.

[Glenn]

Who pays for the treatment? Do they not offer treatment in jails anymore? Which is more cost effective? Which one has a lesser recidivism rate?

[Smogger]

Do they not offer treatment in jails anymore?

No. It had become an either/or situation. They pay for treatment out of the money they would have spent on jail. Naturally it's more expensive to keep someone locked up, feed and cloth them, etc.

[TKDietz]

Most jails don't offer treatment. Most prisons do. Recidivism rates are higher for forced treatment in prison than for treatment on the outside. They'll play the game on the inside but when they get out they go back home to the same old friends and the same old temptations. To get off the drugs while on the outside, they have to make new friends and find a new way of living. That's the idea. Get them working and living a sober life so that when they complete programs like this they'll have a strong foundation for living right when their period of supervision is over.

Personally, I don't believe much in forced treatment. I don't know much about California's program but from talking with some California attorneys it doesn't appear to work very well. They give these people too much crap to do that so many never get done and on top of that they give them too much rope, so a lot of them end up in prison anyway for noncompliance. Some little jail sanctions along the way as attitude adjustments would be a good idea rather than letting things slide until it's too late. A short little jail sentence or too for those who don't straighten up and fly right might keep a lot of them from screwing up enough to where they have to be sent off on a long expensive prison sentence.

Our local drug court has some of these shortcomings too. The people in it have so many meetings they have to go to every week during working hours, plus a lot of homework. If any have a decent job they lose it. And a lot of them get crossways with our witchy drug counselor. She and I have it out every once in a while too and I'm just the public defender. I don't have to see her three times a week and give her a bunch of homework assignments, kiss her rear end and play her little games. A lot of them fail out because they just get sick of all the crap and start blowing things off. The problem with this is that now everyone with felony drug possession charges (not talking about dealers) is offered drug court or prison. Before most all of these people would have gotten a fine and a suspended sentence. Drug court was supposed to save us money by cutting down on the number of people sent to prison but instead it's costing the state more money because so many end up failing out of the program or quitting and getting sent to prison who before would have gotten fines and suspended sentences. Drug court may be a good thing if we didn't force in everyone in who is caught with any tiny amount of "felony drugs" or caught twice with a joint. We need to get some of the more hardcore people in, even those selling a tiny amount to one of these "confidential informants" who are just druggies wearing wires hitting up their buddies for some dope so they can weasel out of trouble themselves. The overwhelming majority of "delivery" cases we get involve less than a gram and the buys are made by druggies who have been caught themselves who beg and plead with anyone they think won't seek retribution to get them some dope. These "dealers" in most every case are addicts who just like the snitches who set them up will get dope for other dopers if it helps them stay high, or just as a favor they expect to be returned when they don't know where to find dope. More of them should get a little stint in jail and then drug court after that, and if they fail out and go to prison it won't be that big of a deal.

Forced treatment doesn't really work well though. People just play the game to get through and when they get out almost all of them will go back to what they were doing. High numbers of those who go to treatment on their own backslide, but not so much as those who were forced into treatment. If it were up to me, we'd just fine people caught with a little of the hard stuff, and let them work the fines off with community service if they need to or "lay the fines out" in jail. Then we'd drug test them regularly for an extended period, with a short little jail stint every time they fail or miss a drug test. We wouldn't force treatment, we'd force abstinence. If these people want treatment because they get tired of screwing up and getting sent to jail, let them go get it on their own. I don't even have a problem with making government facilities available, or they can pay for it themselves or go to facilities run by churches or whatever. Just let them do it on their own initiative because if they do it on their own initiative they have a much better chance of succeding. They have to want to quit for treatment to work. Those that don't get it can either quit without it or just keep spending a few days in jail over and over again.

If it were up to me they'd never get off this probation until they went an extended period, six months or more, clean. First offenders with no other indications in their criminal history of a drug problem may just get off with a fine and an anti drug class or something, but those we keep seeing over and over again in the system because of their drug problems need something like this to help them get off the stuff. We all benefit from that because these guys are a nuisance. They hardcore addicts cause a lot of problems, and within the criminal justice system we see these same guys over and over and over again. Most of the guys out their doing drugs are just party people having a little fun and most of them will grow out of that phase of their lives on their own someday. For the most part they really aren't causing the rest of us a lot of problems. The hardcore addicts do. We really need to get a handle on them. I think we should do what I described above, and of course think that any who steal or commit other serious crimes with victims should feel the full weight of the law, with no breaks given because these people are addicts.

[Glenn]

Thanks so much for your input and insights. Very helpful. It would be nice to see them tried.