Catch 22: Drugs and Hypocrisy Behind Bars

by Matt Kelley · 2009-04-27 07:10:00 UTC
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Talk to anyone who has served time in prison and they'll tell you drugs and alcohol are everywhere inside. As many as 50 percent of prisoners are believed to have substance abuse problems. All kinds of drugs are readily available, they come at a high price and guards may either overlook their use (for a price) or come down hard when it's convenient.

A Human Rights Watch report last month on drugs and treatment in New York prisons points out the glaring hypocrisies of drug enforcement behind bars: people early in their sentences are more likely to have drug problems yet have less access to drug treatment. Even worse, the punishment (in New York and many other states) for a prison drug violation is time in solitary confinement - which means, once again, no access to treatment. It's a cruel irony - we start by sending people to prison when they should instead get treatment. Then, if they're caught using drugs inside, we send them to prisons within prisons called solitary confinement and continue to deny treatment. This is a recipe for a neverending cycle of addiction and incarceration.

HRW's Megan McLemore wrote last week in the Syracuse Post-Standard about the benefits of treating drugs in prison as a health issue:

These policies make no sense either for public health or security. Prison drug treatment is cost-effective, saving $2-$6 in health care and re-incarceration costs for every dollar invested. Leaving drug dependent prisoners untreated simply raises demand for drugs in the prisons. Drug treatment, on the other hand, has been shown to make prisons more secure. The state Legislature recently passed a budget that expands prison drug treatment as part of Rockefeller Drug Law reform. But the disciplinary system needs to be reformed as well.

A rule change this month in New York could begin the process of improvement. The State Office of Alcoholism and Substance Abuse Services will begin to oversee substance abuse issues in prisons. This is a step in the right direction - toward threating drugs in prison as a public health problem. Hopefully other states will begin to move in the same direction.

Matt Kelley is the Online Communications Manager at the Innocence Project and a graduate of the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University. Follow him on Twitter @mattjkelley.
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