NYS CoRR Platform

Treatment/Transformation

• Issue Summary.
  
  Many of those incarcerated in New York State prisons are afflicted with addiction or mental health problems.  These individuals, and the greater society, would be best served by offering lower-cost alternatives to incarceration to address the problems that are at the root of their criminal activity.
  
  In-prison programs that effectively work on self-improvement and personal transformation are essential, and merit evaluation, expansion, and replication.

  Victims of crime need to be heard and cared for.

  
  Coalition Position.

  • Expand  alternatives-to-incarceration programs, for both addicted and mentally ill incarcerated persons, throughout New York State.
  • Strengthen addiction treatment programs both in-prison and in community centers for post-release follow-up.    Insure that clinical staff are well trained and supervised.
  • Restore funding for the Veteran's Residential Therapeutic Program with increased emphasis on veteran's Post Traumatic Stress Disorders.
  • Evaluate and then expand or replicate transformative programs that effectively teach life skills and social development - e.g. A.A. and N.A., the Merle Cooper Program, Rehabilitation Through the Arts, Network, and Alternatives to Violence. Focus future programming on "evidence-based practices."
  • Encourage and expand attention to victims of crime, and the awareness of offenders and communities to their needs. Further utilize Victim Awareness Panels, Victim/Offender Mediation, and Victim Restitution/Compensation programs.
  • Provide further training of correctional officers in the recognition and appropriate handling of mentally ill and addicted incarcerated persons.
  • Consider converting a correctional facility into an advanced correction center,  for highly motivated incarcerated persons who are seeking addiction recovery and/or self-knowledge and self-improvement.
    
     

  Rationale.
  
  A large proportion of incarcerated persons suffer from addiction and  /or  mental health problems. Many lack social development and could increase their rehabilitation through self knowledge and personal growth programs.

  A recent study from Columbia University’s Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse (CASA) reports that the more often an individual is imprisoned, the more likely that person is to be a substance abuser.  Forty-one percent of first time incarcerated persons have a history of regular drug use, however, that figure rises to 81% for those with five or more prior convictions.  According to the National Institute of Justice, without proper treatment between 65 and 70 percent of all untreated parolees with histories of cocaine or heroin use will return to drug use within just three months of release.  It is unrealistic to expect a formerly incarcerated person to successfully reenter society after a lengthy incarceration with no more skills to address addiction than he or she possessed at the time they committed the crime.

  
  Treatment is more effective than imprisonment.  A report issued by the Arizona Supreme Court estimated that state’s policy of treating nonviolent drug offenders, rather than putting them in prison, produced good results, with 77.5% of the more than 2,600 participants testing free of drugs after participation.  This rate exceeds the results in most other states.

  A study by the State of Connecticut indicated that their lower-cost alternatives to incarceration program was 2-5 times more successful than prison in reducing crime, with re-arrest rates much lower among program participants.

  Federal Bureau of Prisons research indicates that an incarcerated person who receives treatment is 73 percent less likely to be re-arrested and 44 percent less likely to use drugs again.

  A recent RAND study indicates that treatment for offenders can be 10 to 15 times more effective in reducing drug-related crime than incarceration.
   

  Resources could be better spent on community-based rehabilitation.  The NYS Department of Corrections currently spends $32,000 per  person per year to incarcerate offenders.  The Arizona program cited above saved that state more than $2.5 million in its first year of operation because the cost of treating the individuals was substantially lower than the cost of incarceration.  Columbia University’s CASA also reports that investing in proven treatment for incarcerated persons (coupled with appropriate education, job training and health care) could yield tremendous benefits.  Nationwide treatment costs an average of $6,500 per  incarcerated person, and would provide an annual economic benefit to society of $68,800—a tenfold return on investment—in terms of avoided incarceration costs, as well as wages earned and taxes paid by former incarcerated persons.

  Approximately 14 percent of the nation's prison population and seven percent of the jail population have serious mental illnesses.  Unfortunately, a National Institute of Justice study indicates that 84 percent of jail officials reported that only 10 percent or fewer of incarcerated persons received mental health care while incarcerated.

  Incarcerating mentally ill and addicted individuals is costly and ineffective.  A recent California study found that it costs that state up to $1.8 billion annually to house mentally ill incarcerated persons.  And, according to a National Institute of Justice report, mentally ill, formerly incarcerated persons return quickly to correctional systems in part because those systems lack aftercare planning, and the communities to which they return lack sufficient services to meet their needs.  Expanded services and better coordination between correctional staff and programs in the community would help stabilize mentally ill, formerly incarcerated persons in the community, stem additional criminal activity and prevent their return to jail or prison.

  The NYS Commission on Sentencing Reform, in its October 15, 2007 report, states:

  "State agencies and professional organizations should undertake efforts to determine what training standards are appropriate for clinical staff in each applicable discipline or function, and determine whether it is desirable and feasible to require that all treatment providers comply with those standards. Compliance could be ensured through State licensing requirements (such as the licensing of substance abuse treatment programs by OASAS) and the implementation of contractual requirements for providers who contract with DOGS, supervising agencies and OASAS."

  "Over the past 30 years, numerous research studies have identified critical components of effective correctional interventions and documented extraordinarily successful programs, which are commonly referred to as "evidence-based practices."

  ^"It is essential that New York's policymakers harness this growing body of knowledge of what works in corrections and infuse our institutional and community programming with scientifically validated, evidence-based practices. This should include adopting the principles of best practices of effective correctional programming as identified in this body of research, including: (1) using intensive intervention for offenders with the highest risk of recidivism; (2) targeting offender needs that are most closely tied to criminality; (3) having a human services orientation; (4) enhancing intrinsic motivation; (5) utilizing "cognitive-behavioral" programming that focuses on attitudes, interpersonal skills, anger management, thinking style, moral reasoning and the link between thought and behavior."

   

A summary of all 12 planks can be found at Summary

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