Treating NOn Violent Drug Offenders
Treating Non-violent Drug Offenders A history of drugs and alcohol is very common among jail inmates. ... There are several benefits to admitting drug offenders into treatment. ... According to Barry McCaffrey, drug czar of the Clinton administration in 2000, there are nearly 1.8 million people in prison and he estimates that between 50 to 85 percent of prisoners are there because of a drug problem (Marks). ... When you add all that up it costs the United States about 3 billion dollars a year to keep drug offenders in jail. ... For every Misley 2 dollar put into treating drug offenders, seven dollars of public money is saved (Marks). Treating drug offenders really adds up economically and California residents have already reaped the benefits of treatment. In 2000, California introduced a bill called Proposition 36 which gave first and second time drug offenders the option of rehabilitation. ... “If you give (drug users) hope for the future, they will leave the drugs behind them,” said Jack Cole a former drug enforcement agent (Choudhury). Rehabilitation provides drug users/offenders with a positive support group that consists of talking with other addicts about their problem with drugs and how they are working or have worked to kick their habit. ... Michaelis Jacoby, former drug offender and clinical supervisor said, “I know for me jail has no rehabilitative qualities-it just taught me how to be a better criminal” (Haake). ... In-patient treatment is a program in which the drug offender lives in a facility with several other drug offenders and is kept on twenty-four hour surveillance. ... The best thing about in-patient treatment is that it is a drug free environment, every time a person leaves the building, for doctor’s appointment or a meeting; they are checked to make sure that when they re-enter Misley 4 that no drugs/alcohol comes with them inside the building. Another type of program is out-patient treatment which consists of meeting several times a week with a group, submitting drug tests, attending meetings (AA, NA or CA), and completing the twelve step program. ... Medical detoxification is a system in which drug users are systematically withdrawn from drugs, this usually takes place in an in-patient or out- patient setting.