Substance Abuse Rehabilitation In American Corrections
illness and addiction. They are members of the surplus labor market—those that are unemployed due to limited skills and disabilities. They are a neighborhood’s youth, elderly, veterans, and immigrants, alienated from the norms and expectations of opportunity in a capitalist society. They are stigmatized so their actions and behaviors are non-normative, and public tolerance and policy dictates efforts to contain and manage them.
A number of historical developments have set the stage for the shift from being primarily “tough on crime” to effective treatment, but the critical role of substance abuse treatment in the history of rehabilitation in American Corrections is often overlooked. Substance abuse treatment has demonstrated success over the
years in fostering recovery and reduction in recidivism rates and criminality, and treatment consistently has been shown to reduce the costs associated with lost productivity, crime, and incarceration caused by drug use. Treatment can help many drug using offenders change their attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors; avoid relapse; and successfully remove themselves from a life of substance use and crime. Over the years, the therapeutic community (TC) has evolved and gained acceptance as an effective substance abuse treatment model in prisons and community-based settings. By focusing on treatment of substance abusers, a classification that includes most offenders and is highly correlated with recidivism, it became possible to introduce effective rehabilitation programming into prisons and to begin challenging the old adage that “nothing works in correctional rehabilitation”. However, these programs have demonstrated less success with employment. This is especially true for the large percentage of substance abusers with criminal justice records. In addition to the high rate of unemployment, offenders have the stigma of criminal justice involvement, a low level of education, few marketable skills, and significant gaps in work history. This is furthered by Federal and State restrictions on the types of jobs that ex-offenders can hold.
Although the integration of treatment and vocational training, including screening and assessment, education, pre vocational and vocational training, and employment services has been recognized by SAMHSA’s TIP 38: Integrating Substance Treatment and Vocational Services, employment lags behind other treatment initiatives. Prior studies have shown how work release can help prisoners with histories of substance abuse maintain recovery and develop prosocial lifestyles. More recently, in programs such as those in the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, prisoners learn trade skills, produce items for sale, and leave prison with the tools of the trade they learned, have attracted attention.
Entrepreneurship education might be particularly valuable for prisoners because self-employment as an occupational career path can help overcome potential employers’ discriminatory attitudes toward ex-prisoners (Bushway et al., 2007; Cooney, 2012), and by developing an entrepreneurial mindset, individuals whose career paths have been terminated can begin to form an attitudinal foundation from which to rebuild a future (Haynie & Shepherd,
A number of historical developments have set the stage for the shift from being primarily “tough on crime” to effective treatment, but the critical role of substance abuse treatment in the history of rehabilitation in American Corrections is often overlooked. Substance abuse treatment has demonstrated success over the
years in fostering recovery and reduction in recidivism rates and criminality, and treatment consistently has been shown to reduce the costs associated with lost productivity, crime, and incarceration caused by drug use. Treatment can help many drug using offenders change their attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors; avoid relapse; and successfully remove themselves from a life of substance use and crime. Over the years, the therapeutic community (TC) has evolved and gained acceptance as an effective substance abuse treatment model in prisons and community-based settings. By focusing on treatment of substance abusers, a classification that includes most offenders and is highly correlated with recidivism, it became possible to introduce effective rehabilitation programming into prisons and to begin challenging the old adage that “nothing works in correctional rehabilitation”. However, these programs have demonstrated less success with employment. This is especially true for the large percentage of substance abusers with criminal justice records. In addition to the high rate of unemployment, offenders have the stigma of criminal justice involvement, a low level of education, few marketable skills, and significant gaps in work history. This is furthered by Federal and State restrictions on the types of jobs that ex-offenders can hold.
Although the integration of treatment and vocational training, including screening and assessment, education, pre vocational and vocational training, and employment services has been recognized by SAMHSA’s TIP 38: Integrating Substance Treatment and Vocational Services, employment lags behind other treatment initiatives. Prior studies have shown how work release can help prisoners with histories of substance abuse maintain recovery and develop prosocial lifestyles. More recently, in programs such as those in the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, prisoners learn trade skills, produce items for sale, and leave prison with the tools of the trade they learned, have attracted attention.
Entrepreneurship education might be particularly valuable for prisoners because self-employment as an occupational career path can help overcome potential employers’ discriminatory attitudes toward ex-prisoners (Bushway et al., 2007; Cooney, 2012), and by developing an entrepreneurial mindset, individuals whose career paths have been terminated can begin to form an attitudinal foundation from which to rebuild a future (Haynie & Shepherd,