“I was rescued, and when I say rescued, I mean arrested.” So begins one woman’s story of how she overcame her drug addiction, through a diversionary court program that allowed her to receive treatment rather than face incarceration for a non-violent drug charge. It is on this principle of treatment in lieu of incarceration that Proposition 36 is based.
The voters made a progressive choice back in 2000, when they voted Prop. 36 into law. This enlightened proposition gives non-violent drug crime arrestees a choice between jail time or addiction recovery services. For the last five years, we at the CLARE Foundation have been treating the addicts that the taxpayers entrusted to us. We are Prop. 36 in action and we know it works.
The CLARE Foundation is a non-medical drug and alcohol addiction recovery service on the Westside of Los Angeles, and is a major provider of both outpatient and residential treatment under the auspices of Prop. 36. Once the case of a person charged with a non-violent substance offense is referred to a Prop. 36 court, that person goes for a full bio-psychological evaluation. The evaluation determines the severity of the addict’s dependency, and based on the outcome, either outpatient or residential treatment is prescribed. Both avenues consist of a rigorous course of one-on-one counseling, group meetings, and frequent drug testing by a nationally certified lab.
Prop. 36 is currently receiving a great deal of attention due to two studies recently published, one from UCLA and the other from the Justice Policy Institute in Washington, D.C. Both studies show excellent results at both the treatment level and the taxpayer level which the media has been quick to highlight. The savings to the California taxpayers of $2.50 for every dollar spent are definitely worth celebrating. So is the downturn in the rate of drug addiction among California’s prison population from 28 percent down to 21 percent, also a result of Prop. 36.
What is harder to quantify are the lives redeemed, the families that have been reunited, the knitting back together of our social fabric. Although difficult to measure, we can see such effects for example in this month’s announcement by California State correction officials that recidivism — the rate at which past offenders break the law again — is down 40 percent, the lowest it’s been in 25 years. I can’t help but think that giving addicts a road to recovery rather than allowing them to languish in a jail cell plays a major role in that statistic.
Most families know someone whose life has been marred and scarred by substance abuse. Do our sons and daughters belong in prison because of this ill? Wouldn’t we want to see our brother or sister treated for the addiction they suffer? The CLARE Foundation strongly supports the continued funding for Prop. 36. The financial savings aside, the real victory is in the human savings. We believe that everyone who comes in contact with the legal system as a result of their addiction should be availed of treatment. There is a saying in the world of recovery, “Keep coming back.” It’s a mentality we ought to adopt as a society. We can’t afford to give up on those who are suffering. Recovery is not an event but a process, and it takes compassionate legislation like Prop. 36 to sustain that process.
Nicholas Vrataric Executive director, CLARE Foundation
