Jail Alternative: Drug Treatment
* Re the Jan. 16 editorial “New Jail Is Needed Now”:
The answer to Sheriff Mike Carona’s problem of jail overcrowding is not only simple but cost-effective.
Much of the overcrowding in the Orange County jail system is a result of sentencing drug offenders to jail time instead of residential rehabilitation.
Why not utilize the many fine residential treatment centers we have available in our county? The statistics show it not only costs less to rehabilitate than to incarcerate a drug offender, but it also lessens the chance of repeat offenses.
The answer is not to build more jails but to fund more residential treatment centers with trained substance abuse counselors.
The “system” needs to allow for treatment as a viable sentencing option and use it more often. Attorneys and judges need to educate themselves concerning different treatment options.
Parole and probation officers need to mainstream their clients through the use of treatment and rehabilitation centers. Most important, people need to be more tolerant of the possibility of a residential treatment center in their neighborhood.
If we are to ever end the “war on drugs,” we must change the way we have been battling it. If at first you don’t succeed, try a new approach.
MERILEE GREENE
Orange
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