Jail an Impractical Approach to Drug Offenses

To The Editor:
On Feb. 11, the publication of “County Has Drug Problem, Gang Presence” presented that Cape May County is facing the challenge of abating its prevalence of crime and drug abuse. The article reflected the Chief of Detectives Eugene Taylor’s, strong endorsement of incarceration as a prime solution to this issue. Highlighting the statement he made at a Lower Township police community meeting that follows, “I became a police officer because I wanted to help people; I wanted to help them into jail if they were doing something wrong,” the article made clear the chief detective’s opinion. Although Taylor has the best intentions, imprisonment is undeniably an impractical, unsuccessful, and expensive approach to helping individuals of drug offenses.
Unfortunately, criminalization of addiction neither cuts crime, nor diminishes drug abuse. Instead, it does quite the opposite. Upon drug offenders entrance into the criminal justice system, the lack of rehabilitation services provided make it likely that, once released, they will return to their bad habits and continue to participate in risky behaviors.
According to the Department of Corrections Office of Transition Services (OTS), New Jersey has one of the highest recidivism rates in the country. Their studies suggest that the re-arrest rate is 55 percent, reflecting that prison is doing very little to change their beliefs or behaviors. The OTS also states that the department spends about $34,600 per year on each inmate, regardless of the programs inability to produce positive results. This means tax payers are financing a revolving door where offenders continuously fail to rehabilitate into society.
However, there is hope. To make progress toward drug free communities, an alteration from a reactive to a preventative policy would make all the difference. In support of this perspective is Gov. Chris Christie with his recent proposal of mandated drug courts for non-violent drug offenders. With treatment as a dominant component, this model is proven to reduce recidivism as well as save substantial amounts of money. The National Institute of Justice, also in support, declared “program outcomes resulted in public savings of $6,744 on average per participant.”
So, contrary to the chief detective’s conjecture that incarcerating the county’s drug offenders will be the solution to our problems, in order to reduce crime and rehabilitate individuals, advocating policy implementation of mandated drug courts on a state level would foster much higher success rates. In efforts keep our county drug free, at a much lower cost, advocacy from counties that need these services the most, like Cape May, would make improvement possible.
LISA MARIE CHERRY
Court House