Peeking at Drug Addiction and the Law Offenders

There is no doubt that drug addiction is a chronic brain disease. But unlike any other illnesses that send patients to hospitals and other necessary medical institutions, drug addiction often throws a person to jail. This is since drugs turn a person's good-natured conduct into an impulsive and delinquent behavior, and consequently, criminal assaults and law violations seem to be a normal result.

Drug Treatment and the Law Offenders

Incarcerating an offender is not sufficient a response to the strong correlation of drug addiction and law violations. To totally dismiss the ill results of drug addiction and law breaks from the bloodline of the society means to slash the underlying cause, and simply putting a person to jail cannot materialize this objective even by just a fraction. What the offenders need is a drug treatment program that can help them avoid drugs and eventually lead them to abstinence. Researches state that an effective addiction treatment integrated in the criminal justice system has been found out to be instrumental in declining an offender's possibility of drug use and drug-induced criminal assaults, improving his relationship between his relatives and friends, and securing a probability for employment. For instance, a recent research showed that the prisoners from Delaware State Prison who underwent therapeutic treatment program and remained being treated after release were 70% less likely to get back to drug abuse and get arrested than those who did not go through a substance abuse treatment at all.

Equipping the Offenders

Treatment should not start and end in the prison halls because there is a mightier tendency for a relapse in the outside world. As the offender reemerges in society, the same instances, places, and people that prompted him to use drugs the first time can appear as inviting as they had been before. He may have a relative or friend still engaged in drugs, may be pressured with unemployment, or may instinctively feel unloved and unsupported. Without a post-prison treatment, the newly-released offender may succumb to these kinds of threat and create a craving that he feels is so huge to resist. Eventually, he may return to an addicted lifestyle, be sent back to jail, or even worse get killed. However, this will never be the case if he continuously involves himself in an addiction treatment program that can equip him to battle with relapse and handle his addiction problems with the necessary skills.

Sources:

http://www.nida.nih.gov/Drugpages/cjtreatflyer.html

http://www.nida.nih.gov/PODAT_CJ/faqs/faqs1.html#3

http://www.nida.nih.gov/PODAT/PODAT6.html