prison

A recent study in how methadone can be a useful tool in preventing re-offending and prisoner death rates has been released by the National Drug and Alcohol Research Centre at the University of New South Wales. The 10 year long study involved 375 male heroin using prisoners from New South Wales prisons. The study found that those on methadone were 20% less likely to re-offend compared to those not on methadone substitution.

 I shall never forget the first time I heard the consequences of drugs told by a convicted prisoner. It was a couple of years ago when I was working in a prison and I had to interview a prisoner to attend his basic demands. His story was perhaps so common, nothing unusual in a place where people get sent for committing crimes but the fact that I was in the interview room and the person facing me was about to be sent to serve his sentence made me think about the reality of addiction and crime.

Drug Courts are a novelty in the criminal justice field. Since the first pilot programs started in early 1980s in the United States, more and more countries worldwide begin to observe advantages of this solution and try to implement the project. Drug courts’ purpose is to limit the use of alcohol and other drugs as well as diminish the criminal activity associated with their use. In the United Kingdom the first pilot projects of this kind took off in early 2000s in Glasgow, Fife, Leeds and London. Why do governments decide to follow this path?

Michelle Alexander, the author of The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness answers some questions from TalkingDrugs.

Q1. Outside the US mass incarceration appears to be a monumental social injustice, why do you think the problem has existed for such a long period of time and received so little media exposure both inside and outside the country?