« MI: Prisons system is one fifth of state budget | Main | There's a booming business in building prisons in U.S. »
June 29, 2006
Drug Policy Alliance Files Suit to Protect Prop 36
Drug-offender provision faces suit
Authors of treatment initiative oppose jail terms in budget deal.
By Laura Mecoy -- Bee Los Angeles Bureau, Sacramento Bee
Thursday, June 29, 2006
LOS ANGELES -- Authors of a drug-treatment initiative said Wednesday they will file a lawsuit challenging the changes in the voter-approved measure legislators made as part of the latest state budget agreement.
Proposition 36, requiring treatment instead of prison for certain nonviolent drug offenders, won approval by California voters in November 2000.
Senate Bill 1137, which won legislative approval Tuesday night, would let judges impose short-term jail sentences for drug offenders who relapse while in Proposition 36 programs.
The legislation's goal is to compel offenders to stay drug-free. But Proposition 36's authors contend additional treatment is the answer -- not jail.
"Jail is not part of treatment," said Margaret Dooley, Drug Policy Alliance Proposition 36 outreach coordinator. "It doesn't help people stop using drugs. If it did, we wouldn't have a recidivism problem."
SB 1137's author, Sen. Denise Ducheny, D-San Diego, had expected a legal challenge. So she included language saying the provisions of the bill would be put to a vote of the people if the courts strike down Senate Bill 1137.
Daniel Abrahamson, Drug Policy Alliance director of legal affairs, said the alliance would also challenge this "unprecedented and wacky provision. That provision has never been used anywhere in California."
California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger required the changes in Proposition 36 as a condition of continuing to fund the initiative.
The initiative mandated funding for the first five years of the program, then turned the issue over to lawmakers and the governor to decide in the upcoming budget and future budgets.
Last year, a group of prosecutors, judges and drug treatment officials first proposed using short jail sentences, or "shock incarceration," to try to improve compliance with the law.
University of California, Los Angeles, evaluations of the program have found more than a fourth of those sentenced to treatment under Proposition 36 never show up for their initial assessment and only a fourth complete treatment.
UCLA also found offenders sentenced under Proposition 36 are more likely to have a new drug arrest within a year than those arrested for the same crime before the initiative went into effect.
Margita Thompson, the governor's spokeswoman, said Schwarzenegger hopes to improve these outcomes by signing SB 1137 into law. "The focus has to be on the goal of helping these people lose their addiction to drugs so you can protect public safety," she said.
As part of the budget, lawmakers approved increasing the current funding for Proposition 36 from $120 million a year to $145 million a year.
But drug treatment program administrators and providers have said they need $209.3 million to adequately fund the program.
A UCLA study found that the state saves $2.50 in incarceration and other costs for every $1 spent on Proposition 36.
http://www.sacbee.com/content/politics/ca/story/14273042p-15083207c.html
Posted by lois at June 29, 2006 10:24 PM