Nonviolent Drug Offenders In Prisons

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As of March 2018, the United States criminal justice system holds almost 2.3 million criminals in its custody and at 724 people per 100,000, the United States has one of the highest rates of incarceration in the world. Of the 2.3 million people incarcerated, 456,000 are locked up drug-related offenses such as possession, trafficking, or other nonviolent drug offenses, which accounts for almost 20% of the total prison population. The current criminal justice system in the United States for nonviolent drug offenses does little to reintegrate offenders and should adopt an alternative correctional system which uses rehabilitation or community service for people who have committed nonviolent crimes. The present-day American justice system …show more content…
Only 40% of inmates actually received addiction treatment while in prison, this low participation can be attributed to many factors, one of which is the fact that many prisons lack the programs to treat addiction and even if they do have the resources, many of the prison staff are too occupied or don't care enough to help. Another major factor of these low participation rates is the fact that treatment in prisons is made to be apart of their punishment and to the incarcerated they are being penalized instead of helped which can cause reluctance and noncompliant behavior (Keri Blakinger, Why is Prison Drug Treatment Such a Failure?). By sending nonviolent drug offenders to rehab they are much more likely to respond to the treatment they receive because they perceive the treatment …show more content…
This is because Prison does not act as a suitable facility to treat prisoners with addiction (Keri Blakinger, Why is Prison Drug Treatment Such A failure). Prison populations have a significantly higher rate of substance abuse, so by placing nonviolent offenders in with general population, they are exposed to drugs which can fuel an addicts drug abuse or could lead to a relapse in offenders who have had a period of abstinence. This basically causes prisons who are trying to treat abuse to work against themselves because, after treatment, prisoners go back to general population and are then re-exposed to drugs and face the chance of becoming addicted, undoing all the original work. This can make the inmate suffering from the addiction question whether abstinence is possible and may become untrusting of treatment. Furthermore, putting nonviolent offenders in with general population also exposes them to unsafe forms of drug behavior which can result in disease since there are higher rates of HIV, Hepatitis C and other blood-borne illnesses within prisons and activities that aid the transportation of these diseases, such as sharing needles, are much more prevalent. The Norwegian correctional system can be looked at as a prime model for how America should conduct its justice system for nonviolent offenders. The Norwegian prison
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