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Justice
Department
Reports
Seventy
Percent
of
Jail
Inmates
Drug-Involved
5/12/00
A report issued this week
by the Department of Justice indicates that 70% of inmates held in the
nation's jails are either serving time for drug offenses or were regular
users prior to incarceration. Jails, as opposed to prisons, are locally
run institutions used primarily to house people waiting for trial and those
serving sentences of less than one year.
The study, which analyzed
data from 1998, also found that 26% of inmates had been jailed at least
once before for a drug offense, and that 17% of inmates were intravenous
drug users.
Seven out of ten jails have
policies in place to test employees and inmates, but inmate testing, at
$10-15 per, is often seen as "too expensive" to carry out. About
75% of jails offer some form of substance-abuse treatment or program for
inmates.
In a story regarding Vice
President Gore's call for drug testing and treating inmates, covered last
week by The Week Online, Dr. Peter Beilenson of the Baltimore Health Department
told the Week Online that while treatment availability is important in
jails and prisons, non-coerced treatment is an even more glaring need.
"There needs to be a significant
increase in funding for treatment on request. We don't provide enough
of that," said Dr. Beilenson. "I don't believe that we should have
to arrest people in order to provide them with treatment."
-- END --
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Issue #137, 5/12/00
New York Assembly Legalizes Over the Counter Sale of Syringes | Woman Whose Daughter Turned Her In Gets One Year | Justice Department Reports Seventy Percent of Jail Inmates Drug-Involved | Mexico City Police Commissioner Calls for Dutch Approach to Drug Policy | Q and A on Dutch Drug Policy | Report Calls on the UN Biodiversity Convention to Stop Dangerous US Fungus Experiments | Student Senate Overturns Presidential Veto of HEA Reform Resolution | Green Harvest Eradication Program Denied Funding in Hawaii | No Helicopters to Colombia: Act Now Before May 16th Vote | Stop "Smoke a Joint, Lose Your License" -- Action Update | RAISE YOUR VOICE: Action Needed Against Higher Education Act Drug Provision | MORE AlertS: New York and Washington State | EVENTS: District of Columbia, Toronto, New York, San Francisco | Editorial: Family Devalued
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