Source: N.Y. Times News Service
Pubdate: Sunday, January 11, 1998
Author: Christopher S. Wren 

CLINTON WILL REQUIRE STATES TO CUT PRISON DRUG USE

Seeking to cleanse prisons of illegal drugs, the Clinton administration
plans to tell the states that they have to determine and report the extent
of illicit drug use among their inmates before they can receive more
federal money to spend on prisons.

The information that the states provide will be used to create a baseline
to measure their progress in reducing drugs inside prison, which in turn
will qualify them for more federal money.

President Clinton is scheduled to sign the directive in the Oval Office on
Monday. A draft copy, which is addressed to Attorney General Reno, was
provided by a senior administration official who said that it had been
circulating in the White House, the Justice Department and other interested
agencies for the last month or two.

The document reflects a belief within the administration that crimping the
supply of drugs in prison will cut the demand for them after the convicts
are released. ``With more than half the individuals in our criminal justice
system estimated to have a substance abuse problem,'' the draft says,
``promoting coerced abstinence within the criminal justice system offers us
a unique opportunity to break this cycle of crime and drugs.''

The directive builds on legislation that Clinton promised in the 1996
presidential campaign and pushed through Congress last year. The law
requires states to draw up comprehensive plans to test and treat prisoners
and parolees as a condition of receiving money for prisons from the federal
government. The states have to present their plans by March and implement
them by September.

The directive would go beyond that in requiring that states report on drug
use by prison inmates and demonstrate progress toward eliminating it. The
directive further proposes that Reno draft legislation that would let
states spend some of the federal money earmarked for prison construction to
test and treat prisoners and parolees for drugs if the states increased
penalties for smuggling drugs into prison.

``This is about testing and coerced abstinence,'' Rahm Emanuel, a White
House senior adviser, said in acknowledging details of the draft directive.
``We have to slam shut the revolving door between drugs and crime.

``You have a number of drug users who commit a lion's share of the crimes
in this country in a controlled environment, and that time should be used
to advantage,'' he said. ``Through mandatory testing, you will force a
change in their behavior that will break the link.''

A report released on Thursday by the National Center on Addiction and
Substance Abuse, at Columbia University, estimated that illegal drugs and
alcohol contributed to the incarceration of 80 percent of the 1.7 million
inmates in the nation's prisons and jails, and said that most of those
inmates are not treated for addiction before being released.

The center's report said that the annual cost of building and operating
prisons and jails in the country had more than tripled since 1980, reaching
$38 billion by 1996.

The 1994 Crime Act authorized federal grants to the states for prison
construction amounting to $7.8 billion over five years. A more modest
amount was earmarked for drug testing and treatment. Clinton has tried to
use the large grants to induce states to subject drug felons to regular
testing and treatment while they are locked up or on parole.

The administration has also increased to 42 from 32 the number of
residential treatment centers in federal prisons, and more than tripled the
number of federal inmates undergoing treatment for substance abuse to
19,943 in the last fiscal year from 5,450 in 1993.

A program was also created to give drug tests to defendants arrested under
federal laws, resulting in tests on 9,308 of those arrested, or more than
half, last year compared with 4,929 in 1996. Clinton has made federal money
available as well for local drug courts, which divert nonviolent petty
offenders into treatment as an alternative to prison.

The extent of illicit drug use inside prison has been far more difficult to
measure because of its clandestine nature. Prison officials tend to be
reluctant to concede that drugs get smuggled in by visitors or sometimes
prison guards. But many inmates say that drugs are there for anyone who
wants to buy them, usually at a price higher than what is paid on the
streets. Sixty percent of one group of 46 inmates undergoing treatment in
Delaware prisons admitted to using drugs while incarcerated, primarily
marijuana but also some cocaine and alcohol.

``I think there's a great deal of drug use in prison,'' said Robert
Silbering, who retired last month after 13 years as New York City's special
narcotics prosecutor.  ``I don't think anyone really knows how widespread
it is, but certainly a fair amount of drugs get into prison.''

In 1995, only 8.9 percent of 1.6 million drug tests conducted in state and
federal prisons proved positive, a figure that Steven Belenko, the author
of the study released on Thursday, said probably reflected underreporting.

``There's very little hard data'' about drugs in prison, Belenko said.
``But the anecdotal stuff suggests that it's pretty much available.''

Though state prisons hold nearly 90 percent of the inmates in prison, drugs
have reached into federal prisons, too. Jeff Stewart, who now lives in
Washington, was sent to a federal minimum security prison for five years
for growing marijuana. He said the judge warned him beforehand, ```Where
you're going there will be drugs.'''

``If they bust you for drugs,'' Stewart said, ``they know they're going to
lock you in a cage full of drugs.'' 

©1998 N.Y. Times News Service