By midyear, 1977 there were one million, seven hundred fifty two thousand, eight hundred forty seven people incarcerated in U.S. jails and prisons. Among violent offenders in state prisons, fifty percent reported being under the influence of alcohol or drugs at the time of their crime. Overall, these substance abusers make up well over half of our current prison populations. Often released from our prisons with little or no treatment, recidivism rates for these people by some measures are approaching seventy percent.

  Solid research on the ineffectiveness of punishment as a long term agent of behavior change coupled with soaring prison recidivism rates are strong indicators that imprisonment and punishment alone are having little viable effect on inmate criminal behavior, drug use or recidivism. Despite studies showing the efficacy of treatment for inmate substance abusers, the grim reality is that less than fifteen percent of substance abusers receive any kind of drug treatment prior to being released from our prisons and the quality and validity of the programs which do exist is questionable.

  Virtually all prisoners are eventually released directly back into society with the same or worse problems than they were sent to prison with. Our prisons have few if any treatment programs operating on a scale anywhere near large enough to effectively break up this dangerous and expensive self-perpetuating substance abuse/incarceration cycle. 

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