The Real Cost of Prisons Weblog

But she's finally getting treatment for the demons that cause her to do drugs. She's clean, vivacious and determined to change her life and become a good mother to her four children.

If she continues treatment on the outside, her chances are excellent. The Department of Corrections says addicts who complete intensive treatment inside the prison and continue with follow-up treatment outside have only an 8 percent chance of returning to prison, compared with 45 percent for those who don't.

The cost of this treatment behind bars? $10 per day per inmate.

Putting an inmate back in prison costs $77 per day.

But despite evidence that treating inmates for their addictions pays off financially, Colorado legislators facing stark shortfalls in revenue cut state funding for drug and alcohol treatment inside prisons by around 40 percent in 2003.

Colorado now can provide treatment to just 15 percent of its inmates - though it says 80 percent are plagued by addictions.

Faced with these cuts, the five staffers in the program helping Diecidue change her life doubled their workload, to help 72 inmates instead of 36, said Joe Stommel, who runs treatment programs for the prisons.

"It's put a lot of demands on the staff," he said.

Stommel says he needs funding to treat twice as many of the 900 inmates at the women's prison.

He knows he's not likely to get it.

Instead, if Referendums C and D aren't approved by the voters, Stommel fears the entire program for treating inmate addictions could be eliminated. That's because there's little else to target in Corrections. Legislators, he is certain, are not going to slash funding for guards.

Addiction shows up everywhere.

Another DWCF inmate, Carolynn Padilla, 32, looks like she still belongs in her Columbine neighborhood in Littleton, carting her four children from school to sports.

But she and her fellow housewives were bored, and the crowd turned to drinking and drugs.

Padilla says she began a slide into wild drug use and promiscuity that ended in fraud, forgery and a four-year prison sentence.

The treatment program that Diecidue and Padilla are taking is intense, with group counseling, anger management and strict commitments to change.

Diecidue said it's working for her because "I allowed it to get deep down into where my pain is and why I get high."

And she's learning that "I can't control my husband, or my history. I can only control Amber, and what Amber is doing today."

Padilla said it took time for treatment to take. "I was very grandiose. I was so mad, and 'Who are you to tell me?' "

Three of the four women in the program interviewed by the Rocky Mountain News said it was their addictions that led them to crime.

Blue DeHerrera said she started using meth. Then, she turned to manufacturing it - first for herself, then for sale.

All four said they didn't succeed on their first try at treatment.

DeHerrera, 31, and Jessica Sanchez, 21, said they were ordered into the prison's treatment program, but walked off its separate floor back into the general population after seeing how hard it was.

Both have returned.

Sanchez, who said she was doing cocaine when she was arrested for transporting drugs, returned to the program because "I seen that it changed a lot of people that I know.

"I don't want to come back to prison," said the mother of two.

Expecting inmates to go to treatment only after they leave prison won't work, Diecidue said.

Spending years in the general prison population would be like "marinating" in criminal behavior - drugs, fighting and sex, she said.

Going directly from that atmosphere to the outside, she said, "We'd be thinking about the first Corona we're going to buy - and finding some businessman."

If a parole officer ordered her abruptly into treatment, she thinks she would be furious at being told what to do, after years of such orders behind bars.

In short, if Colorado cuts more substance abuse treatment in prison, "You would just have more animals," she said.

Refs C and D at a glance

• Referendum C would allow the state to keep an estimated $3.7 billion in revenue over five years that otherwise would have to be refunded under spending limits of the Taxpayer's Bill of Rights. The state estimates the average taxpayer would give up $490 over five years, or $100 a year, and might lose some tax credits.

• Referendum D, which takes effect only if voters approve it and Ref C, would allow the state to issue bonds to borrow against the expected revenues and devote money immediately to roads, schools, and the police and firefighter pension funds.

• This is what the state says it would do with the money.
30% for K-12 schools: For such things as textbooks, libraries, kindergarten

30% for health care: For such things as programs for elderly, low-income and disabled people, programs to lower health insurance costs

30% for community colleges and state colleges: For such things as need-based financial aid, merit-based financial aid, College Opportunity Fund Program, which applies $2,400 a year per student toward college funding

10% Repayment of Referendum D bonds, which break down as follows:

• ROADS AND BRIDGES

Work on 55 projects approved by the Colorado Department of Transportation:

$1.7 billion

• K-12 SCHOOLS

Capital funds to repair dilapidated buildings in the poorest school districts. Typically, each $2 of these funds are matched with $1 by local districts, which means $220 million in total improvements:

$147 million

• HIGHER EDUCATION

Improvements and repairs to facilities at universities, colleges and community colleges:

$50 million

• FIREFIGHTER AND POLICE PENSION FUND

Colorado's share of the state-local match to the pension fund, which the state has deferred for several years because of the budget crunch:

$175 million

More online

• To read previous stories in the series;

• To calculate an estimate of the TABOR refunds you would give up under Ref C and the tax credits you might give up,

URL: http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/election/article/0,1299,DRMN_36_4168560,00.html

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