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Drug Treatment as an Alternative to Prison
Even though traditional proponents of incarceration for drug offenders cite character rehabilitation as the primary benefit, there is no evidence to justify the claims. From the past three decades, the population of inmates charged with drug-related offenses has significantly increased globally. According to the underlying imprisonment statistics, seventy-percent of drug offenders in the United States emerge from convicts of the last three years (Clark, Doran, and Farabee p. 223). The statistics affirm that the judicial system should make relevant referrals, especially for non-violent drug offenders. One alternative to prison for non-violent drug offenders would be treatment programs because they can help treat the underlying causes, in which a person committed their offense, reduce recidivism and help control the overcrowding of the prison system.
Non-violent drug offenders have an opportunity, if clinically diagnosed, to rehabilitate and abandon drugs than if incarcerated. The behaviour of drug addicts within the prisons show an exposure to an increased drug use through unhealthy and detrimental injection methods (Clark et al. p. 223). Despite the role of the courts and law enforcement authorities to reduce drug dependence in the community, imprisoned non-violent drug offenders end up with uncontrollable behaviour upon completion of jail terms. Such cases of increased deviant characters in the society compromise the role of the judicial system to alleviate the community from the effects of drug and substance abuse.
Apart from the rehabilitation of behaviour in the lawbreakers, the court should focus on the health of the victims within and after serving prison terms. Even though accessibility to drugs is lower in the prisons, the inmates of drug offense are more exposed to infectious diseases as opposed to drug-users in the community. The rate of re-infection increases with the use of blunt and unsterilized objects to inject some of the drugs to the inmates (Clark et al. p. 223). Drug offenders with history of incarceration have a higher chance of developing infectious diseases, for instance, HIV/AIDs and hepatitis C. Based on the reinfection rates in the prisons, the legal practitioners should seek alternative rehabilitation system for non-violent drug offenders.
The overcrowded prisons comprise a broad spectrum of antisocial characters exhibited by the ruined drug addicts. Sending non-violent drug offenders to the prisons implies the replacement characters that can be mended through alternative corrective measures with punitive and uncontrollable behaviour. Under medical intervention, the victims of minor drug offences can rehabilitate and denounce drug use. Scott and Gosling portrays prisons as dehumanizing settings that comprises socially-allienated individuals with multiuple deviant characters (p. 52). Judges that recommend incarceration as the first-line corrective measure for the non-violent drug offenders contribute to the spread of the daunting effects of drug abuse. Therefore, drug treatment option provides the best rehabilitation alternative to the filthy prisons.
Works Cited
Clark, Nicholas, Dolan, Kate, and Farabee, David. “Public health alternatives to incarceration for drug offenders.” Eastern Mediterranean Health Journal, vol. 23, no. 3, 2017: pp. 222-228.
Redonna, Chandler, Bennett, Fletcher, and Nora D. Volkow, M. “Treating Drug Abuse and Addiction in the Criminal Justice System: Improving Public Health and Safety.” 14 January 2010. www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2681083/. Accessed 2 October 2020
Scott, D. G., and H. J. Gosling. “Before prison, instead of prison, better than prison: Therapeutic communities as an abolitionist real utopia.” International Journal for Crime, Justice and Social Democracy, vol. 5, no. 1, 2016: pp. 52-66.
Werb, Daniel, et al. “The effectiveness of compulsory drug treatment: a systematic review.” International Journal of Drug Policy, vol. 28, 2016: pp. 1-9.