Pubdate: Fri, 10 Dec 2004
Source: Cyprus Mail, The (Cyprus)
Copyright: Cyprus Mail 2004
Contact:  http://www.cyprus-mail.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/100
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/heroin.htm (Heroin)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/rehab.htm (Treatment)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/prison.htm (Incarceration)

THERE HAS TO BE A PRISON REHAB

A VIOLENT burglar was sent to jail this week for a string of offences in 
the Nicosia area. The man was a drug addict. His case was so serious that 
when the police who arrested him took him home to pick up some pills he 
claimed he had been prescribed, he went to the lavatory where officers 
caught him injecting heroin.

The man, aged 24, came from a shattered home: with an absent father and an 
alcoholic mother, he started smoking and taking drugs at the age of 14; he 
ended up being brought up by his grandparents, who are now looking after 
his own four-year-old daughter. His estranged wife is also a drug addict in 
no position to bring up the child.

The man is clearly a danger to society. His robberies had involved 
violence, in two cases against pensioners, in an another against a 
handicapped man. Yet he is also a clear victim of society, someone in 
urgent need of treatment for his addiction.

Sentencing, the court berated the authorities for the failure to provide a 
proper drug rehabilitation facility within the Nicosia central prison. This 
is a man who desperately needs 24-hour treatment. Yet neither does the law 
provide for mandatory treatment, nor do the secure facilities exist for a 
prisoner who presents a clear danger to society. So the judges have no 
option but to send this man to a prison that has no facilities to treat 
him. He will no doubt be regularly seen by a doctor, but he will not have 
the full rehabilitation programme that may save his life and ease his 
reintegration into society once his sentence is completed. In prison, he 
will probably try to get drugs from the outside, feeding both his own 
addiction, and the prison's internal disciplinary problems.

It's not as if this was a one-off case. The courts have repeatedly 
highlighted this problem whenever sentencing drug addicts to jail. For 
people so deeply addicted, their arrest could be an opportunity to drag 
them back from the brink. That opportunity is being missed. As a result, 
addicts are being condemned to a continued life of dependency that 
eventually leads to death, while society is being condemned to the eventual 
release of untreated addicts who will reoffend to find money to pay for drugs.

The government cannot just hope the problem will go away. It won't. In 
fact, it will only get worse unless decisive action is taken soon. Like it 
or not, this is the new social reality. We have to treat its victims, even 
if they are criminals. Otherwise, the rest of us will also pay the price.
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