Jail 'not the solution' to drug crime

Convicted drug users should not be sent to prison because it does more harm than good, a report from the influential UK Drug Policy Commission will say tomorrow. Up to 65,000 prisoners in England and Wales are thought to be problem drug users and, of these, two-thirds are convicted of less serious crimes such as shoplifting and burglary. The commission believes these offenders should not be jailed. Although the report accepts that almost a third of heroin and crack users arrested admit to committing an average of one crime a day, it says that community treatment programmes would be more effective than prison.

U.S. Imprisons One in 100 Adults, Report Finds

For the first time in the nation’s history, more than one in 100 American adults are behind bars, according to a new report. Nationwide, the prison population grew by 25,000 last year, bringing it to almost 1.6 million, after three decades of growth that has seen the prison population nearly triple. Another 723,000 people are in local jails. The number of American adults is about 230 million, meaning that one in every 99.1 adults is behind bars. Incarceration rates are even higher for some groups. One in 36 adult Hispanic men is behind bars, based on Justice Department figures for 2006. One in 15 adult black men is, too, as is one in nine black men ages 20 to 34.

Confronting Confinement

On any given day, 2.2 million people are incarcerated in the United States, and over the course of a year, many millions spend time in prison or jail. 750,000 men and women work in correctional facilities. The annual cost: more than 60 billion dollars. Yet within three years, 67 percent of former prisoners will be rearrested and 52 percent will be re-incarcerated. At this moment, the effectiveness of America's approach to corrections has the attention of policy makers at all levels of government and in both political parties. The Commission and its report, Confronting Confinement, make a unique contribution to this timely national discussion by connecting the most serious problems and abuses inside jails and prisons with the health and safety of our communities.