The Defeat of Prop 5: California
of the corrections union, CCPOA, made it sound like the prison gates were being opened, and whoever chose to would leave. The wording of their TV spots was actually ridiculous, but founded in the “fear” works philosophy so well implemented by the Bush Administration for over 7 years. Guess what, it worked. The people fell for it. I must say that having MADD on board probably legitimized the whole campaign of terror. Too bad!
On the average it costs over ,000 to keep an inmate incarcerated for a year. FORTY THOUSAND DOLLARS!!! They can participate in a community based treatment program for fees ranging from k to k for a year. What you really have to understand here is that it only take 90 days in these programs to reduce the rate of return to prison. If you put the inmates into treatment for a full year, these numbers are going to incrementally improve. It is actually accepted among drug treatment professionals that a full year in treatment, over briefer lengths of time, can improver their own effectiveness between 50 and 90 percent.
The “science of addiction” and its implementation into treatment programs over the past ten years has been a revolution in knowledge of the “disease concept” of addiction and alcoholism. This disease is recognized as a disease by the American Medical Association , the American Psychiatric Association and the World Health Organization, and has been for decades. The drug counseling certification agencies have moved into State Universities and are turning out highly capable professionals in the field of drug abuse counseling. But they are constantly challenged by the medical and psychiatry fields because they are effective and paid much less than a doctor or psychiatrist. It’s money again. As with the prison employees, the purse strings are pulled so the defense mode kicks in. CAADAC, the California Association of Alcoholism and Drug Abuse Counselors has very high standards for certification that can only be obtained by a combination of courses in State University Drug and Alcohol Certification, Extension Programs, and by passing both written and oral examinations through a testing board. These kind of agencies exist over the entire country. Many private, or community based treatment programs in California require CAADAC certification over a 4 year degree, and others require a combination CAADAC credentialing and job experience in place of the degree. But the most effective treatment, that of community based providers, who the overwhelming majority of these counselors work for has no significant government funding in place. Nearly all of it goes to the failed prison SAP’s.
The opponents of Proposition 5, in California, would have a big pat on the back coming for their highly effective campaigning, if wasn’t for the fact that all that they actually did was just out spend the dedicated, under paid professionals in the drug treatment field! This is a true shame for the misinformed and the old “crime and punishment” advocates of California… the taxpayers. California Corrections has squandered over a Billion Dollars, since 1989, on prison programs that don’t work, and the public remains in the dark about the truth. But the real losers here, are the countless Addicts and Alcoholics, and their families, who are imprisoned rather than treated for a Disease that can effectively be arrested, allowing them to become “productive, taxpaying members of Society. The effect of not rehabilitating human beings afflicted with this dread disease is so far reaching that it is truly heartbreaking. Families remain broken and dysfunctional when it need not be so. The problem then extends into welfare costs and overcrowded publicly financed mental clinics, too. Financially failing county hospitals have their emergency wards overflowing with children and spouses from these families who inevitably wind up being medically indigent, using the emergency room as their clinic. As it is they remain a “burden on society” rather than an asset, because incarceration does not change the Addict. They re-offend and go back to prison where the career criminals teach them how to become more of a criminal than they ever would have been if not subjected to the prison environment and population. “Genetically prone to Addiction” children witness all of the behaviors and follow right in the footsteps of their addicted parent because the combination of genetics and environment almost assuredly doom them to do so.
Proposition 5 could have been the beginning of a turn-around for California, and may have helped the rest of the country follow suit, eventually. But, an organization desiring overtime and government perks for it’s members, that is also the largest, most powerful, union in the State, lobbied, bought and sold out the citizens of California, in the dark spirit of greed overwhelming true justice and hope,