When incarcerating a drug adict the decision to place them into prison or into a mandated drug treatment program is a decision that could drastically effect the addicts future. I personally believe that it should not be solely about punishment for a drug addict if their crime was a drug related crime. Of course, in cases of serious violent crimes (rape, murder, assault, etc) criminals should serve their time in prison. But for non-violent offenders, a drug treatment program should be the first place they should be sent. It is there in which a drug addict can hopefully learn the necessary skills to live a successful, drug free life inside and outside prison. After hopefully overcoming their addiction, these addicts can then learn the proper coping skills, social skills, and job/life skills to build a healthy life after prison to hopefully never return. The percentage of prisoners that return to prison multiple times in their lives is staggering as is the number of prisoners with drug and alcohol dependencies. I believe these numbers are so high is because society focusses on punishment rather than rehabilitation. There are certainly situation where rehabilitaion shouldnt or cant be a possibility but there definately times when rehab would help. We are constantly hearing about different states constantly building new prisons and bigger prisons because of the tremendous overcrowding in the current prisons. I wish some of those millions of dollars that are being spent on new prisons would be spent on developing a drug treatment program. With the way things are now, with the ever growing prison population, trying to develop a program like that definately couldnt hurt. We can keep on building new jails until there is no more land left to put them, but unitl we try something new and/or different things wont get any better.
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