Pubdate: Sat, 19 Feb 2005
Source: Capital Times, The  (WI)
Copyright: 2005 The Capital Times
Contact:  http://www.captimes.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/73
Author: Joel McNally
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/rehab.htm (Treatment)

DRUG REHAB BETTER FOR ALL THAN STRAIGHT PRISON TIME

The state's alternatives to prison for drug offenders would be more 
successful in keeping people out of prison if you didn't have to go to 
prison to participate.Former Milwaukee Ald. Paul Henningsen cut several 
months off a three-year federal prison term by successfully completing an 
alcohol rehabilitation program. That's good news for the taxpayers and good 
news for Paul.

Gov. Jim Doyle wants to similarly reduce Wisconsin prison costs by 
expanding opportunities for inmates to cut their sentences by successfully 
completing alcohol and drug treatment and job training.

Doyle's initial steps in this area are modest, even though they would 
nearly double the paltry efforts at drug and alcohol treatment that now 
exist within the state prison system.

The governor's budget proposal would expand treatment to an additional 400 
inmates a year. The current six-month treatment program accepts 400 men and 
60 women a year.

Currently, about 1,200 inmates are on a waiting list. Corrections Secretary 
Matt Frank says at least 70 percent of the state's 21,800 inmates are in 
need of drug or alcohol treatment.

This is one of those rare programs that appeals to both liberals and 
conservatives because treatment is not only cheaper than incarceration, but 
it also does a whole lot more to improve public safety and turn former 
offenders into productive citizens.

Clearly, the only real enemy of expanded treatment is public ignorance. 
That was perfectly illustrated by the reaction to Henningsen's successful 
treatment by two journalists who should have known better.

Cary Spivak and Dan Bice write a gossipy, investigative reporting column 
for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. They are good reporters, especially 
skilled at researching public records to unearth information, sometimes 
trivial, sometimes important, the public has a right to know.

But their attack on Henningsen's successful treatment, a good-news story, 
was irresponsible journalism. They ripped the corrections system for doing 
what it's supposed to do - correct behavior and improve the ability of 
those incarcerated to succeed on the outside.

Not only did the columnists oppose shortening anyone's prison sentence for 
completing alcohol or drug treatment, but they even objected to Henningsen 
earning additional time off for good behavior.

Henningsen will have served 23 months of a 33-month sentence for misusing 
election campaign funds if he is released as scheduled in September. About 
half of the reduction was a result of the treatment program. "So much for 
truth in sentencing," Spivak and Bice moaned.

For the record, the federal prison system is not bound by Wisconsin's truth 
in sentencing law, which was passed by posturing local politicians to 
pretend they were tough on crime.

The biggest untruth about truth in sentencing is the notion that a judge 
can possibly know at the time of conviction the appropriate time to safely 
release an offender back into the community after he has spent years in prison.

That can depend on so many factors, not the least of which is whether the 
individual successfully completes drug or alcohol treatment. Unfortunately, 
it's a lot easier to obtain drugs and alcohol in prison than it is to 
obtain treatment.

Grasping for any reason to oppose prison treatment programs, Spivak and 
Bice feigned concern over fairness to inmates who were not addicted to 
drugs or alcohol because they would not have the opportunity to shorten 
their sentences.

Those lucky ducks who are addicted to drugs and alcohol. They get all the 
breaks. Of course, you might have difficulty convincing someone of that 
after he has destroyed his life and his family and finds himself cast into 
the dark dungeon of our prison system.

If intelligent professional journalists actually believe it would be better 
for addicted inmates to sit in a prison cell longer without receiving any 
treatment instead of getting out of prison earlier after successfully 
completing treatment, what hope does the governor have of selling expanded 
drug treatment to uneducated yahoos?

The meager $2.9 million Doyle wants to spend on drug and alcohol treatment 
in prison may be one of the few expenditures in the $1 billion state 
corrections budget that actually has a chance of accomplishing something 
positive.

The bulk of the billion spent on corrections simply goes to confine human 
beings in hard, mean places that return harder, meaner offenders back to 
the community more dangerous than they were before.

The irony for years in Wisconsin has been that Milwaukee County actually 
claims to have alternatives to prison for drug offenders. The catch is the 
programs are only offered in prison.

The Felony Drug Offender Alternative to Prison currently has about 70 
participants at the Milwaukee Secure Detention Facility. A similarly 
misnamed program for women, Treatment Alternative to Prison, has only one 
participant at the Women's Correction Center in Milwaukee.

The state's alternatives to prison for drug offenders would be more 
successful in keeping people out of prison if you didn't have to go to 
prison to participate. After Doyle's initial baby steps of expanding 
treatment in prison, we should try the real alternative of treatment 
instead of prison.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom