With states facing swooning levels of deficits nationwide, turns out more than a handful are considering releasing inmates early in order to save funds. Matt Yglesias flags the story, arguing that we should switch toward more cost-effective methods to deal our problem of hyper-incarceration, e.g., treatment, and the identification of "best-practices" for policing. Good calls, all.
But another proposal he raises -- choice abstinence -- is more troubling. Under choice abstinence, as Mark Kleiman explains in "A Neo-Paternalist Drug Policy Initiative," an addict would be tested for drug use every 72 hours. Anytime their results turned up positive, he or she would be briefly incarcerated.
Let me be clear that I do think Kleinman makes, to an extent, apersuasive case. What disturbs me about "choice abstinence" is how it seems to echo the same flawed notion that undergirds the current drug war: that addiction is a choice. Or to be more precise, that addiction is somehow a crime, or evidence of personal moral failing.
Take it from the National Institute of Drug Abuse, and it bears repeating: Addiction is a chronic, relapsing disease. As a condition, it's comparable to other long-term diseases like diabetes or asthma, and equally in need of long-term treatment. And yet under choice abstinence, in the likely eventuality that an addict relapses, he or she will be thrown in jail (where drugs are hardly unavailable, anyway.)
To really reduce incarceration, a better avenue of focus would be greater emphasis on treatment and prison reentry programs. The problem, though, is that such efforts require substantial up-front investment--money these days that, with over 25 states now facing budget shortfalls, is in short supply. For now, what's a strapped legislature to do? Double down on sentencing and parole reforms that don't cost the state funds, and in the long term can save them.
--Te-Ping Chen
