Link Between Drugs and Crime
* I found “Attacking the Drug/Crime Link” (editorial, Jan. 7) insightful. Around 80% of all criminals in prison have a substance abuse problem. Only around 5% of the 1.7 million people in custody in the U.S. today receive any kind of treatment for their drug problem. And as indicated in the editorial, the Amity “therapeutic community” project at the California Department of Corrections Donovan Prison has demonstrated a remarkable 16% arrest rate for convicts who go through the program, as compared to a 65% arrest rate for those who receive no drug addiction treatment.
Since 1991, when the Amity program was instituted, I have worked directly in the project directing psychodrama and group therapy. I have observed a remarkable spirit among most criminal/addicts to change their lives in a positive direction when they are offered some reasonable treatment option. It is estimated that the national prison population will reach 3 million in the next decade. If this type of treatment program was instituted on a national level, we could cut our prison population in half by 2010 and prevent tens of thousands of criminals and their victims from the human tragedies that flow from crime.
LEWIS YABLONSKY PhD
Emeritus Professor of Criminology
Cal State Northridge
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* You say, “A link between crime and drugs is unassailable.” Make tobacco possession a felony and see if tobacco prices go up, how high, and see how hard addicts will fight to get enough money to buy it, and how tobacco-related crime is born of their desperation. I want my tax money back on the war on drugs, and I want an apology from the government.
Yeah, there’s a connection between drugs and crime; without government interference, drug sales would follow only the laws of supply and demand; drugs would be affordable (less than 1/20 of current street value); most addicts wouldn’t need to steal your car to get enough money to purchase something that they need as badly as you need oxygen. Government is the real connection between drugs and crime, and drug enforcement personnel and politicians are the beneficiaries. The taxpayers are the ones who helplessly foot the enormously wasteful bill.
ROBERT HEARD
Huntington Beach