Nation Is One With Finite

¶ … nation is one with finite resources. In the midst of our current economic recession, every tax dollar spent counts. This leads one to wonder why so much money is spent incarcerating low-level and nonviolent drug offenders, who essentially need medical treatment above criminal punitive punishment. In today's judicial system, drug offenders are treated like criminals, and not the addicts and medical patients that they are. Our nation is dead bent on a war with drugs, physically forcing these addicts out of their addiction. However, "Getting tough on drugs may be good politics but inefficient public policy," (Kim et al. 1993:174). Typical solutions tend to gravitate towards either harsh criminal punishments or an increase in drug awareness education, both have their own successes and failures, (Kay 2002). In today's unstable economy, it is clear that changes must be made, not only for the physical and mental health of the addicts themselves, but also for the general taxpayer who is forced to foot the bill of their incarceration.

Literature Review

Our nation's prisons are filled to the brim, many way overcrowded, many with drug offenders. After the drug induced days of the rebellious 1960s a wave of reformist laws swept over the nation. Much of the legislation passed during the 1970s and 1980s was aimed to stop a new war America had just declared -- the war on drugs. Today, almost half a million of our nation's inmates are incarcerated for drug related crimes (Drug War Chronicle 2008). These offenders take up over one-fifth of the prison space allocated here within the United States (Washington Post 1994). This enforced the idea that drug abuse was a crime, and that the drug user was nothing better than a common criminal. Little attention was turned to the concept that drug abuse was in fact, actually a disease. What resulted from this new war on drugs was "a noticeably disproportionate increase in our prison population over the past three decades" spurred by the "jailing of low-level nonviolent drug offenders who not previously have been incarcerated," (McCormick 2000:508). Offenders receive sentencing based on the nature of the drug they were charged with possession of. The Controlled Substance Act established a tier system which placed various illicit drugs in a hierarchy based on their presumed danger to the body and society. Heroine and crack cocaine, for instance, are one of the most illicit drugs -- and therefore hold greater prison time in sentencing, (Kay 2003). However, what this system fails to realize is that the harder the drug, the greater the addiction and the more the addict needs help to come clean. Harsher prison sentences for harsher drugs do little more but seal the fate of the addict turned criminal.

Drug abuse is a disease. However, using incarceration as punishment for drug possession is not acknowledging such; "the state views discrete incidents of detected possession not as manifestations of an over-arching addiction, but as isolated crimes deserving punishment," (Armstrong 2003:133). This view fails to secure the proper treatment addicts need as true medical patients. Rather than be medically treated as any other individual suffering from a potentially life threatening disease would be, they are thrown in jail for extensive periods of time with little or no support or programs to help them get clean, (Nadelmann 2007). This type of treatment will only lead the addicts to revert to their addictive behavior once back into the real world, leading to high levels of recidivism and suffering on behalf of the addicts themselves.

In many cases, the public is greatly swayed by the promises of politicians stating that they have a real solution to the drug problem through heightened punishments. However, increasing punishments and cracking down only presents media coverage, and not a true solution of the problem. Yes, it is true that many drug offenders do participate in other crimes; however, studies show that they are generally related "to participation in the drug market," (Kim et al. 1993:174). However, once in jail, many potentially harmless addicts are exposed to a greater world of crime and abuse which proves to only doom their future success in the real world.

It also opens them up to other criminal endeavors which they may not have been exposed to if directed towards treatment or other more viable solutions. Overall, prison is no place for a recovering addict.

Imprisoning drug offenders costs the state billions of dollars annually. Both federal and state budgets are strained by the costs of housing and feeding the average 50,000 to 80,000 new inmates coming into our prison systems annually, (McCormick 2000). Entering into an already overcrowded prison system means that more and more funds must be allocated to caring, housing, and providing medical care for the thousands of inmates across America. What are these costs? Research states that the average cost for caring for an adult inmate within a year can range between $25,000 to $70,000 -- almost the average household income per year (McCormick 2000).

Since the 1980's, there has been an increased push to provide treatment for inmates with drug problems. Such treatments include practices such as assessments, support groups, drug education, group counseling, methadone maintenance, and therapeutic communities, (Lemieux 2002). However, the length an inmate spends within these treatments greatly affects the outcome, (Lemieux 2002). Yet, prison sentences have nothing correlated with necessary treatment durations. The end of a prison sentence ay come abruptly and much too early to provide a successful result with the inmate clean and off drugs. Prison sentencing has made no changes in order accommodate inmates with substance abuse problems, leaving many researchers to question the viability of prison funded treatments all together.

Overall, the research is clear -- the current punitive punishment system in place is ill-equip and inefficient to truly fight the war on drugs. In order to establish a more relevant and effective solution, this nation needs to look at the addict not as a criminal, but as a patient in need. Until we re-evaluate how we think of drug addiction, it will continue to cost millions of dollars to the average tax payer.

Application-Discussion

The disease of drug abuse does not align with the degree of punishment incurred by drug offenders. If any other disease was met with punishment, the tax payer would refuse to foot the bill. The symptoms of drug addiction happen to be vastly different from any other form of disease, but should not be discounted as a true medical condition warranting true medical treatment. Punitive punishment only worsens the case of the addict, both physically and mentally.

Prison does not provide the necessary elements to help an addict out of his or her addiction. According to much research, "The literature suggests that inmates with substance abuse problems have alienated their loved ones and are subsequently isolated from everyone except fellow addicts and criminals," (Lemieux 2002:41). Only one third of prisoners with drug abuse problems are enrolled into a substance abuse program while incarcerated, (Limiuex 2002). Although many prisons across the nation have begun to offer more treatments for inmates, there are limited funds and availability. There are also limited success stories coming out of prison drug programs for a variety of reasons. One is the idea that these programs are ill-equip and insufficient to deal with the entire scope of the mental needs of a drug addict, "Substance abuse and mental health problems have been shown to occur with high frequency among offenders, but the co-occurrence of these conditions is not well understood and treatment often fails to respond to multiple problems effectively," (Johnson 2006:190). In many cases, the mental health problems which either stem from drug abuse or drove the individual to drug abuse are largely ignored, leaving a greater potential to relapse into drug abuse and recidivate back into the state or federal judicial system.

Based on the prison system's inability to truly address the real problem of drug abuse and drug addiction, large numbers of drug offenders seem bound to return to prison based on the potential to fall once again into the depths of their drug use. A prisoner's inability to adjust to the outside world leads in many cases to the return to old criminal habits. When once again caught they are bound to return to prison; this is a phenomenon known as recidivism. In the case of drug offenders, many are more likely to recidivate due to the nature of their crimes, which is essentially a disease, (Kim et al. 1993).

Police crackdown on drug offenders is shown to help deter recidivism. However, in areas which public policy has dictated a stronger police presence and attention towards cracking down on drug offenders show a much higher increase in recidivism; "the probability of recidivism among drug offenders rises when they are released to a county that allocates more of its police resources to arresting drug offenders," (Kim et al. 1993:173). In many cases, states enact mandatory minimum penalties for possession and distribution cases. This means that if an offender is caught with possession, the court has to administer a mandatory minimum jail penalty, (Roberts 1999). However, with this mandatory sentence comes seemingly excessive punishments for being afflicted with a real disease. These types of solutions to the drug problem in the United States fail entirely to grasp drug problems as a real medical issue and therefore throw out medical treatment over punitive punishment, (Nadelmann 2007). Not to mention many of these programs go only so far, failing to provide the support and structure many drug addicts need in order to get themselves clean. Much research has shown that more intensive inpatient programs prove more successful than less regulation programs (McKay et al. 1997). Therefore, ineffective drug treatment programs within prison walls are failing to truly encapsulate the addict as a means of supporting their efforts to get clean.

One other major solution that is currently being used in many states is the enactment of a drug court to handle specific drug cases. This court can then provide alternatives to the sentence imposed on the drug offender. The offender, when convicted, is still sentenced to serve prison time. However, the judge in drug court provides an alternative: if the offender successfully attends and completes drug rehabilitation therapy or programs, that prison sentence is done away with, (Armstrong 2003). This is an excellent step in the right direction for offenders and drug addicts. Not only does it give them the opportunity to stay out of prison, but it provides them a chance in alternative programs aimed specifically at getting them clean, specifically in vulnerable groups such as low income and the homeless (Hodulik 2001). However, there are some problems with the current system in place in many states. In many cases, the offenders themselves are responsible for covering the financial burdens of their drug treatments. Yet, they would not be responsible for their daily incarceration if they were in prison, that is covered by the state. This leaves one to wonder how states can believe their drug courts and programs to be successful when they expect already financially instable inmates to pay for their own rehabilitation, along with all drug court fees and penalties. It is essentially a system that is in place to provide an alternative, however that alternative is not viable within real life applications. On top of this, many drug addicts may prove not to be successful in completing their first round of treatments. As a disease, some degree of failure should be anticipated in the fight to remain clean. However, many states do not accommodate such growing failures, and if the offender fails at one program -- he or she is off to prison. Many of these drug courts place the judge in charge of monitoring offender's treatment, not a doctor (Armstrong 2003).

Conclusion

It is clear that imprisoning drug offenders based on the conditions of their disease is inefficient. Current prison treatments fail to encapsulate the true nature of the disease and current alternatives fail to present a solid plan to get the addict off of drugs. In this day with limited financial resources, it is clear that drug offenders should be somewhere other than spending the tax payers' money in federal and state prisons.

In the midst of the current system there are several recommendations to be considered which would improve the state of our judicial system. One would include

Three recommendations mandatory follow up treatments for inmate's leaving prison. One program in California showed an impressive reduction of the recidivism rate by 50% with the use of a treatment program that followed the newly released inmate into the real world, (Limieux 2002). Following the lines of such successes could vastly improve the success of addicts attempting to cleanse themselves of their addictions. Another recommendation would be absolutely no prison sentencing for mere possession cases. Rather than implement prison sentences, the state and federal courts should require mandatory rehabilitation and treatment sentencing in order to best provide for the recovering addict. Finally, the judicial system should encourage familial support through treatment process and imprisonment. Research has shown that "family and community ties can facilitate an inmate's successful reintegration into society upon release," (Lemieux 2002:52). Thus effort place on improving familial support during the entire recovery process should prove of great importance, especially over the isolation seen in the current punitive design.

Annotated Bibliography

Armstrong, Andrew. (2003). Drug courts and the de facto legalization of drug use for participants in residential treatment facilities. Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology. Vol 94(1):133-156.

Andrew Armstrong presents a look into one of today's most popular solutions, other than sheer force used by police and legislators. This article explores the nature of drug courts and how they are use in various states across the nation along with their history as starting in Florida in 1989. Through this exploration there are signs of success and of failure, with many states still not treating drug addiction like the disease that it is.

Drug War Chronicle. (2007). Sentencing U.S. jail and prison population hits all-time (again) -- 2.3 million behind bars, including more than half a million drug offenders, Drug War Crusade. Issue 564. Retrieved July 19, 2009 at http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/564/US_jail_prison_population_all_time_high_drug_offenders.

This startling article from the drug war's opposition shows exactly how out of hand drug related prison sentences have thrown our judicial system into. Using the finite amount of space and resources our prison system offers, we have packed in real addicts to suffer with criminals instead of getting the true medical help they need. This proves not only a strain on the addicts themselves, but also on all the U.S. taxpayers who foot the bill for our correctional system.

Hodulik, Jennifer. (2001). The drug court model as a response to "broken windows" criminal justice for the homeless mentally ill. Journal of Criminal Law. Vol 91(4):1073-2005.

This article looks specifically at dealing with the use of drug courts within the context of determining punishment for homeless drug offenders. Jennifer Hodulik expresses the need to treat homeless drug abusers as individuals suffering from a disease, and in many cases also some form of mental illness as well. The research shows that punitive punishments for this vulnerable demographic only exacerbate the problems of those homeless who are addicted to some drug and suffering the mental ramifications of that addiction. Drug courts provide the best available solution, for they allow for some growth and potential rehabilitation which would change these peoples' lives in a dramatic way and help get them off the streets and out of trouble with the law.

Johnson, Holly. (2006). Concurrent drug and alcohol dependency and mental health problems among incarcerated women. Australian and New Zealand Journal of Criminology. Vol 39(2):190-211.

This article focuses primarily on the link between substance abuse problems and mental health problems. The research study followed a survey of incarcerated women to determine the link between mental health problems and substance abuse problems. What was also uncovered by the research was the overall inefficiency of prison drug treatment programs to effectively target both the substance abuse and the mental health problems attached to that abuse, leaving many women in the study to relapse despite going through the motions of proper treatment.

Kay, Amanda. (2003). The agony of ecstasy: reconsidering the punitive approach to United States drug policy. Fordham Urban Law Journal. Vol 29(5):2133-67.

This article presents researcher Amanda Kay as a forefront for objecting to typical punitive punishments for various possession offenses. It highlights the drug ecstasy in particular based on its rising popularity with America's you and the debate within the scientific community on how dangerous of a drug it is. Beginning with explaining the drug classification system, Kay then turns to explain how various classes are punished differently -- ecstasy being a drug with a harsh punishment attached, despite its general recreational use by American teens in comparison to other drug which carry higher chances for abuse.

Kim, Il-Joon; Benson, Bruce L.; & Zuehlke, Thomas W. (1993). An economic analysis of recidivism among drug offenders. Southern Economic Journal. Vol 60:169-173.

Researchers in Florida conducted a study which aimed at exploring the recidivism rate among Florida's drug offenders and how that recidivism affected both the individual offender's financial stability as well as the entire state correction's economic health after dealing with such large numbers of drug-related prisoners. The study followed 16,788 drug offender released before 1989 to see what percentage would recidivate with future drug offenses and how those future offenses would effect the economic climate of the Florida State Corrections. Researchers found that although prison proves more of a deterrent for future drug offenses than probation, there are still large numbers of drug offenders who do recidivate, showing that punishment for our nation's drug problem fails to efficiently provide real solutions.