Prison
system on wrong track
In Orange County in 2000 there were almost
8,000 felony drug convictions. That may
sound like a lot — that is crime at the
rate of 372 per 100,000 people of the population
— but the number has dropped by 3,000 since
1994.
In 1994, Orange County’s drug convictions
reached their peak at a little over 10,500.
But those numbers have been declining steadily
since 1995 when an experimental specialty
court was instituted for convicted narcotics
felons. Drug court was designed primarily
as an outpatient program for people who
do not function appropriately in society,
according to the findings of an Orange County
grand jury.
In Orange County, felons who were admitted
to drug court in 1997 and 1998 were found
to have 17 percent re-arrest rate in the
year following release compared to a 35
percent re-arrest rate for people just on
probation. In Los Angeles County, it was
found that the re-arrest rate for felons
receiving no kind of diversion or treatment
was 51 percent. That number dropped to 24
percent when the felons participated in
drug court.
The amazing part about drug court is that
even though there is increased supervision
for the participants, five people can participate
in the program for the cost of incarcerating
one person for one year. Maybe now California’s
government, in spite of our last two governors’
penchants for the prison industrial complex,
can get everybody in the legal system back
on track. Maybe someday prison and jail
really will be for the murderers and rapists
and child abusers, instead of being full
of drug addicts and people with emotional
or chemical imbalances.
Now Orange County is going a step further.
Since 1995, two other programs have emerged
in the justice system as an option for the
straight drug addict. A dual-diagnosis court
and Prop 35, renamed PC1210, treat non-violent,
drug-related and mental health issues.
The county is now proposing a mental health
court especially suited for people who don’t
have drug charges but who are obviously
unable to control their own actions without
help. Modeled after successful courts in
San Bernadino and Riverside Counties, established
in 1997 and 2001 respectively, the court
is an attempt to keep mentally unstable
persons from slipping through the cracks
as criminals.
This court is a needed step in the pursuit
of justice. Only when our jails and prisons
are no longer full of people who have a
clinically recognized problem, whether it
is drugs or a mental illness, will justice
truly be being served. This should be recognized
from the lowest local level as high as it
can go, and although the program failed
to get federal funding the support of the
people who have seen this system work could
carry it through. Maybe someday people will
get all the help they need.
Monica L. Pardee is a journalism major
at Cal State Long Beach.
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