Source: USA Today
Author: Gary Fields
Pubdate:  9 Jan 1998
Contact: STUDY LINKS DRUGS TO 80% OF INCARCERATIONS 

WASHINGTON - Eighty percent of people behind bars were involved with
alcohol or other drugs at the times of the crime, a report says.

And, alcohol plays a role in a greater number of violent crimes than crack
or powder cocaine, according to the report by the National Center on
Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University in New York.

The three year study released Thursday found that 1.4 million of the 1.7
million people serving time in the nation's jails and prisons committed
crimes while they were high, stole property to buy drugs, have a history of
drug or alcohol abuse or are in jail for violating drug or alcohol laws.

The 281-page report concludes that criminal activity because of drugs and
alcohol is the overwhelming reason the nation's prison population has risen
nearly 239% since 1980, when 501,886 people were behind bars.

"People think prisons are full of James Cagney types and psychopaths, but
they are actually full of alcoholics and drug addicts, and we can deal with
that through treat- ment," says Joseph Califano Jr., president of the
center and former secretary of Health, Education and Welfare.

But few of the hundreds of thousands of people who could be turned into
respectable taxpayers and parents are ever treated, Cal- ifano says.
Instead, they are released back into the community as criminals.

"We're not protecting the public safety because we aren't treating the
problem, and we're supporting the illegal drug market be cause we are just
sending customers back."

Among the study's findings:

- - Taxpayers spent $38 billion in '96 to build and maintain the nation's
4,700 prisons.

- - By 2000, one out of 20 U.S. residents will spend time in jail. That
includes one out of 11 men and one out of four black men.

- - By 2000, taxpayers will pay $100 million a day to incarcerate criminals.

- - Repeat offense rates are direcdy linked to drug use. Forty-one percent of
first time offenders in state prisons used drugs regularly, while 81% of
the people with five or more convictions were habitual drug users.

One of the study's key findings is the prevalence of alcohol in violent
crimes. Twenty- one percent of the people serving time for violent crimes -
including murder, rape, spousal and child abuse and assault - were under
the influence of alcohol at the time the crime was committed. Only 3% of
the violent offenders were under the influence of crack or powder cocaine.

Jack Levin, director of the Program for the Study of Violence and Social
Conflict at Northeastern University in Boston, says the role of alcohol in
violence is not surprising. Neither is the fact that most people ignore
that role, he says.

"It's easy to look at crack addicts as devants and perverts prone to
violence," he says. "It's much harder to see people at a cocktail party
that way because that requires us to look at ourselves."