Transaction Search Form: please type in any of the fields below.
Date: April 30, 2024 Tue
Time: 12:11 am
Time: 12:11 am
Results for drug abuse and addiction (texas, u.s.)
1 results foundAuthor: Dunklee, Caitlin Title: Effective Approaches to Drug Crimes In Texas: Strategies to Reduce Crime, Save Money, and Treat Addiction Summary: During the past 30 years, Texas has enacted laws and policies meant to enhance public safety, resulting in crowded prisons and jails, and a corrections budget that comprises a huge slice of the state budget. Laws that focus on incarcerating men and women have been founded in genuine concern. However, a considerable percentage of the people arrested, charged, and incarcerated have been low-level drug users. Since 1999, arrests for drug possession in Texas have skyrocketed. In fact, almost all drug arrests in Texas are not for delivery or distribution, but for possession of a controlled substance. These numbers include people arrested for possession of illicit drugs, as well as the increasing number of Texans who have become addicted to prescription drugs. Both of these groups share a common thread: their substance abuse problems are often rooted in addiction. A proper response to this public health issue is treatment, not incarceration. Many people prosecuted for low-level drug crimes battle other obstacles, including mental illness, homelessness, joblessness, and poverty. Prosecuting and incarcerating Texans whose addictions push them into using illicit drugs or abusing prescription drugs burdens them with the collateral consequences associated with conviction and incarceration; it (further) limits their housing options, employment opportunities, and access to educational and medical programs, and it ultimately lessens the likelihood that they will become healthy, contributing members of their communities. Incarceration-driven policies are also egregiously expensive: treatment is a fraction of the cost of imprisoning an individual in Texas. Finally, our prisons and jails are simply not equipped with staff or resources to adequately combat the root causes of substance abuse and addiction, which means that untreated individuals are much more likely to commit other crimes after release, threatening public safety and creating a continual drain on limited coffers. For those with addiction, drug treatment is a more effective strategy to treat the individual, reduce recidivism, and lower costs to the state. Texas should take steps to aggressively and proactively address drug addiction, and thereby decrease associated crime, by promoting medical and public health responses to this issue. Specifically, policy-makers must support the efforts of practitioners, including probation departments and judges, who are seeking to effectively treat those with substance abuse problems by improving and making more widely available community-based rehabilitation and treatment diversion alternatives. Details: Austin, TX: Texas Criminal Justice Coalition, 2013. 28p. Source: Internet Resource: accessed February 4, 2013 at: http://www.texascjc.org/sites/default/files/uploads/TCJC%20Addiction%20Primer%20(Jan%202013).pdf Year: 2013 Country: United States URL: http://www.texascjc.org/sites/default/files/uploads/TCJC%20Addiction%20Primer%20(Jan%202013).pdf Shelf Number: 127469 Keywords: Alternative to IncarcerationCosts of Criminal JusticeDrug Abuse and Addiction (Texas, U.S.)Drug OffendersDrug Treatment |