Cuts to drug and alcohol treatment could send more addicts to California prisons
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California Gov Arnold Schwarzenegger, secon from left, tours a prison with officials, Tuesday, March 6, 2007, in Norco, Calif. Schwarzenegger toured the prison for low-level offenders and drug addicts while campaigning for an $11 billion reform and building package that he says will alleviate severe overcrowding at the state's 33 prisons.
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The California State Assembly held a special hearing today in Sacramento on budget cuts for addiction treatment programs. The hearing looked at how those cuts will affect public safety.
The non-profit Drug Policy Alliance estimates that 10 percent of Californians abuse drugs or alcohol.
Addiction can lead some to crime to support a habit.
About 30,000 addicts are serving prison time for drug possession.
Judge Stephen Manley says they shouldn’t be there.
"Everyone comes back to the community after they get out of prison" Manley said. "Instead of having them come back without jobs, without treatment, without their medications, we should continue to treat them in the community."
The Superior Court judge runs the drug court in Santa Clara County. The court monitors 7,000 offenders sentenced to treatment instead of jail.
A decade ago, drug offenders comprised 30 percent of Santa Clara County’s jail population. That’s down to 18 percent today.
But Judge Manley says recent cuts in state funding sliced away half the slots in offender rehab programs.
"That means long lists and the inability to get offenders into treatment and a difficult time keeping them in treatment." Manley said.
That also increases the chance that addicts will wind up in state prison. And inside prison, few addicts can get the help they need to kick a drug habit.
Cuts that lawmakers enacted last year mean Corrections and Rehabilitation can treat only 8,500 inmates this year.
That’s a fraction of the tens of thousands of inmate addicts.
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Frank Courser
5 months, 3 weeks ago
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In 1962 a US Supreme Court case Robinson v. California recognized that addiction is a disease. Yet since that year we continue to incarcerate drug users in prison. This would never happen to anyone addicted to alcohol! Treating a drug addiction as a criminal is morally wrong and flat out UN American! Last year California tried to fix these laws to send drug users to rehabilitation. The prison guards spent $1.85 million dollars to defeat this wise ballot measure! Only because of the money brought in by each and every prisoner! That’s sick and it needs change!
Kay Pech
5 months, 3 weeks ago
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A very astute comment from Frank Courser. I fully agree.