Drugs And Crime Essay Example For Students

Drugs And Crime Essay Use federal tax dollars to fund these therapeutic communities in prisons. I feelthat if we teach these prisoners some self-control and alternative lifestylesthat we can keep them from reentering the prisons once they get out. I am alsogoing to describe some of todays programs that have proven to be veryeffective. Gottfredson and Hirschi developed the general theory of crime. ItAccording to their theory, the criminal act and the criminal offender areseparate concepts. The criminal act is perceived as opportunity; illegalactivities that people engage in when they perceive them to be advantageous. Crimes are committed when they promise rewards with minimum threat of pain orpunishment. Crimes that provide easy, short-term gratification are oftencommitted. The number of offenders may remain the same, while crime ratesfluctuate due to the amount of opportunity (Siegel 1998). Criminal offenders arepeople that are predisposed to committing crimes. This does not mean that theyhave no choice in the matter, it only means that their self-control level islower than average. When a person has limited self-control, they tend to be moreimpulsive and shortsighted. This ties back in with crimes that are committedthat provide easy, short-term gratification. These people do not necessarilyhave a tendency to commit crimes, they just do not look at long-termconsequences and they tend to be reckless and self-centered (Longshore 1998,pp.102-113). These people with lower levels of self-control also engage innon-criminal acts as well. These acts include drinking, gambling, smoking, andillicit sexual activity (Siegel 1998). Also, drug use is a common act that isperformed by these people. They do not look at the consequences of the drugs,while they get the short-term gratification. Sometimes this drug abuse becomesan addiction and then the person will commit other small crimes to get the drugsor them money to get the drugs. In a mid-western study done by Evans et al. (1997, pp. 475-504), there was a significant relationship between self-controland use of illegal drugs. The problem is once these people get into the criminaljustice system, it is hard to get them out. After they do their time and arereleased, it is much easier to be sent back to prison. Once they are out, theyrevert back to their impulsive selves and continue with the only type of lifethey know. They know short-term gratification, the quick fix if youwill. Being locked up with thousands of other people in the same situation asthem is not going to change them at all. They break parole and are sent back toprison. Since the second half of the 1980s, there has been a large growth inprison and jail populations, continuing a trend that started in the 1970s. The proportion of drug users in the incarcerated population also grew at thesame time. By the end of the 1980s, about one-third of those sent to stateprisons had been convicted of a drug offense; the highest in the countryshistory (Reuter 1992, pp. 323-395). With the arrival of crack use in the1980s, the strong relationship between drugs and crime got stronger. The useof cocaine and heroin became very prevalent. Violence on the streets that iscaused by drugs got the publics attention and that put pressure on the policeand courts. Consequently, more arrests were made. While it may seem good atfirst that these people are locked up, with a second look, things are not thatgood. The cost to John Q. Taxpayer for a prisoner in Ohio for a year is around$30,000 (Phipps 1998). That gets pretty expensive when you consider that thereare more than 1,100,000 people in United States prisons today (Siegel 1998). Many prisoners are being held in local jails because of overcrowding. This risein population is largely due to the number of inmates serving time for drugoffenses (Siegel 1998). This is where therapeutic communities come into play. The term therapeutic community has been used in many different forms oftreatment, including residential group homes and special schools, and differentconditions, like mental illness, alcoholism, and drug abuse (Lipton 1998,pp.106-109). In the United States, therapeutic communities are used in therehabilitation of drug addicts in and out of prison. These communities involve atype of group therapy that focuses more on the person a whole and not so muchthe offense they committed or their drug abuse. They use a community ofpeers and role models rather than professional clinicians. They focus onlifestyle changes and tend to be more holistic (Lipton 1998, pp. 106-109). Bygetting inmates to participate in these programs, the prisoners can break theiraddiction to drugs. By freeing themselves from this addiction they can changetheir lives. These therapeutic communities can teach them some self-control andways that they can direct their energies into more productive things, such assports, reli gion, or work. Seven out of every ten men and eight out of every tenwomen in the criminal justice system used drugs with some regularity prior toentering the criminal justice system (Lipton 1998, pp. 106-109). With that manypeople in prisons that are using drugs and the connection between drug use andcrime, then if there was any success at all it seems like it would be a step inthe right direction. Many of these offenders will not seek any type of reformwhen they are in the community. They feel that they do not have the time tocommit to go through a program of rehabilitation. It makes sense, then, thatthey should receive treatment while in prison because one thing they have plentyof is time. In 1979, around four percent of the prison population, or about10,000, were receiving treatment through the 160 programs that were availablethroughout the country (National Institute on Drug Abuse 1981). Forty-nine ofthese programs were based on the therapeutic community model, which servedaroun d 4,200 prisoners. In 1989, the percentage of prisoners that participatedin these programs grew to about eleven percent (Chaiken 1989). Some incompletesurveys state today that over half the states provide some form of treatment totheir prisoners and about twenty percent of identified drug-using offenders areusing these programs (Frohling 1989). The public started realizing that drugabuse and crime were on the rise and that something had to be done about it. Separation techniques in forensic scienceIn this study, they found a linear relationship between reduced recidivism ratesand time spent in the program as well as the level of treatment attained. Thisstudy found that it was the attainment of level progress rather than time in thetreatment that was most important. The studies done on New Yorks Stayn Outprogram and Delawares Key-Crest program are some of the first large-scaleevidence that prison-based therapeutic communities actually produce asignificant reduction in recidivism rates and show a consistency over time. Theprograms of the past did work, but before most of the programs were privatelyfunded, and when the funds ran out in seven or eight years, so did the programs. Now with the government backing these types of programs, they should continue toshow a decrease in recidivism. It is much more cost effective to treat theseinmates. A program like Stayn Out cost about $3,000 to $4,000 more than thestandard correctional costs per inmate per year (Lipton 1998, pp. 106-109). In aprogram in Texas, it was figured that with the money spent on 672 offenders thatentered the program, 74 recidivists would have to be prevented from returning tobreak even. It was estimated that 376 recidivists would be kept from returningusing the therapeutic community program (Eisenberg and Fabelo 1996, pp. 296-318). The savings produced in crime-related and drug use-associated costspay for the cost of treatment in about two to three years. The main questionthat arises when dealing with this subject is whether or not people change. According to Gottfredson and Hirschi, the person does not change, only theopportunity changes. By separating themselves from people that commit crimes andcommonly do drugs, they are actually avoiding the opportunity to commit thesecrimes. They do not put themselves in the situation that would allow their lowself-control to take over. Starting relationships with people who exhibitself-control and ending relationships with those who do not is a major factor inthe frequency of committing crimes. Addiction treatment is very important tothis countrys war on drugs. While these abusers are incarcerated it providesus with an excellent opportunity to give them treatment. The will not seektreatment on their own. Without treatment, the chances of them continuing onwith their past behavior are very high. But with the treatment programs we havetoday, things might be looking up. The studies done on the various programs,such as New Yorks Stayn Out and Delawares Key-Crest program, prove thatthere ar e cost effective ways available to treat these prisoners. Not only arethey cost effective, but they are also proven to reduce recidivism ratessignificantly. These findings are very consistent throughout all of theresearch, there are not opposing views. I believe that we can effectively treatthese prisoners while they are incarcerated and they can be released intosociety and be productive, not destructive. Nothing else has worked to thispoint, we owe it to them, and more importantly, we owe it to ourselves. We canagain feel safe on the streets after dark, and we do not have to spend so muchof our money to do it. BibliographyBibliographyBall, J.C., J.W. Shaffer, and D.N. Nurco. 1983. Day-to-day criminality ofheroin addicts in Baltimore: a study in the continuity of offense rates. Drugand Alcohol Dependence. 12: 119-142. Beckett, K. 1994. Setting the PublicAgenda: Street Crime and Drug Use in American Politics. SocialProblems. 41(3): 425-447. Chaiken, M.R. 1989. In-Prison Programs forD rug-Involved Offenders. Research in Brief. Washington, DC: NationalInstitute of Justice. Eisenberg, M., and Tony Fabelo. 1996. Evaluation of theTexas Correctional Substance Abuse Treatment Initiative: The impact of policyresearch. Crime and Delinquency. 42(2): 296-318. Evans, T.D., F.T. Cullen,V.S. Burton, R.G. Dunaway, and M.L. Benson. 1997. The social consequences ofself-control: Testing the general theory of crime. Criminology. 35: 475-504. Frohling, R. 1989. Promising Approaches to Drug Treatment in CorrectionalSettings. Criminal Justice Paper No. 7. National Conference of StateLegislatures, Washington, DC. Inciardi, J.A., S.S. Martin, C.A. Butzin, R.M. Hooper, and L.D. Harrison. 1997. An effective model of prison-based treatmentfor drug-involved offenders. Journal of Drug Issues. 27(2): 261-278. Longshore, D. 1998. Self-Control and Criminal Opportuinty: A Prospective Testof the General Theory of Crime. Social Problems. 45(1): 102-113. Lipton, D.S. 1998. Therapeutic communities: History, effectiveness, and prospects.Corrections Today. 60(6): 106-109. National Institute on Drug Abuse. 1981. Drug Abuse Treatment in Prisons. Treatment Research Report Series. Washington, DC: U.S. GPO. Phipps, B. 1998. Criminology class lecturenotes. Reuter, P. 1992. Community Crime Prevention: a review and synthesisof the literature. Justice Quarterly. 5(3): 323-395. Siegel, L.J. 1998. Criminology. Belmont: Wadsworth Publishing Co. Toumbourou, J.W., M. Hamilton, B. Fallon. 1998. Treatment level progress and time spent in treatment in theprediction of outcomes following drug-free therapeutic community treatment.Addiction. 93(7): 1051-1064. Wexler, H.K., D. Lipton, G.P. Falkin, and A.B. Rosenbaum. 1992. Outcome evaluation of a prison therapeutic community forsubstance abuse treatment. In C.G. Leukkfeld and F.M. Tims (eds.), Drug AbuseTreatment in Prisons and Jails. pp. 156-175. Washington, DC: U.S. GPO.