[Congressional Record Volume 146, Number 66 (Wednesday, May 24, 2000)]
[Senate]
[Pages S4380-S4381]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

      By Mr. LEAHY (for himself, Mr. Robb, and Mr. Kennedy):
  S. 2619. A bill to provide for drug-free prisons; to the Committee on 
the Judiciary.


                   The Drug-Free Prisons Act of 2000

  Mr LEAHY. Mr. President, today I am introducing legislation--with 
Senators Robb and Kennedy--that will provide state and local 
governments additional tools to fight drug use in our nation's prisons. 
It is critical that our prisons be drug-free, both because lawbreaking 
within our correctional system is a national embarrassment, and because 
prisoners who are released while still addicted to drugs are far more 
likely to commit future crimes than prisoners who are released sober. 
This bill includes numerous provisions that will provide needed help to 
address drug abuse in prisons throughout the country.
  The bill establishes a new grant program that authorizes the Attorney 
General to make $75 million a year in grants to state and local 
governments to support comprehensive drug testing and treatment for 
prisoners and other offenders. It would also permit states that 
currently receive money under the Violent Offender Incarceration and 
Truth in Sentencing Grant Program (VOI/TIS) to use those funds to pay 
for drug testing and treatment, so long as the state receiving the 
funds has penalties in place to address drug trafficking in prisons. In 
addition, the bill would reauthorize appropriations for the Residential 
Substance Abuse for State Prisoners (RSAT) grants program for the next 
five years, and establish exemptions to the general four-year time 
limit on Byrne grants for state and local law enforcement programs 
involving drugs.
  The bill also re-establishes the drug courts program and re-
authorizes funding for it. The majority repealed the program in the 
Omnibus Consolidated Rescissions and Appropriations Act of 1996, in a 
partisan bashing of Democratic programs. In my view, effective programs 
dealing with drug abuse should not be used as political footballs. That 
is why the Administration, with the strong support of the Department of 
Justice, has continued to seek funding for the program, and why the 
Congress has continued to fund drug courts in every year's 
appropriations acts. This has been the right decision, and we should 
undo the repeal.
  Drug courts provide the opportunity to deal systematically with 
nonviolent drug offenders at a substantial savings to taxpayers. 
Instead of jailing these nonviolent offenders, the courts can order 
alternative punishments that are mixed with mandatory testing and drug 
treatment and human services such as education or vocational training. 
Meanwhile, imprisonment is held out as a stick to ensure good behavior. 
To qualify for federal assistance, a drug court program must mandate 
periodic drug testing during any supervised release or probation 
periods, provide drug abuse treatment for each participant, and must 
hold out the possibility of prosecution, confinement, or incarceration 
for noncompliance or failure to show satisfactory process. Violent 
offenders are defined quite broadly, so we can be confident that we are 
not funding programs that put dangerous people back on the streets. 
Drug courts hold out the promise of providing a way that we can reach 
out to younger offenders who are using drugs before they turn to a life 
of crime, helping to save lives and significant government resources.
  The bill permits state and local governments to spend up to 25 
percent of unexpended VOT/TIS grants from fiscal years 1996-2001 to 
implement graduated sanctions, including victim and community 
restitution, intensive community supervision, regular drug testing, and 
short-term incarceration. Such graduated sanctions initiatives would 
free up additional prison space for violent offenders, and States would 
have to use this program for that purpose. Indeed, the purpose of this 
proposal is to ensure that States have sufficient flexibility to 
guarantee that violent criminals serve their full sentences, the goal 
of the Truth in Sentencing grants.
  Drug abuse in prisons is a serious problem. The National Center on 
Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University (CASA) recently 
found that drug and alcohol abuse was implicated in the crimes and 
incarceration of 80 percent of those currently serving time in 
America's prisons. This finding shows that we have a prison population 
that has a history of substance abuse, and will seek out opportunities 
to continue using drugs while imprisoned. Of course, if prisoners are 
using drugs in prison, this will create serious behavioral and other 
problems that corrections officers will have to address, at no small 
risk to them.
  The problem does not end there. The same CASA study shows that 
inmates who are illegal drug and/or alcohol abusers are the most likely 
to be repeat offenders. In fact, the study concluded that 61 percent of 
state prison inmates who have two prior convictions are regular drug 
users. The strong link between drug use and recidivism cannot be 
ignored. Prison should provide an opportunity for us to break this 
cycle and therefore reduce crime. We can do this through a concerted 
effort to test prisoners for drug

[[Page S4381]]

use--and penalize those who test positive--and provide adequate drug 
treatment so that prisoners can lead productive, non-criminal lives 
upon their release. As Joseph Califano, former Secretary of the 
Department of Health, Education, and Welfare and current president of 
CASA, recently said: ``Releasing drug-addicted inmates without 
treatment helps maintain the market for illegal drugs and supports drug 
dealers.'' And there is every indication that the number of prisoners 
needing drug treatment is increasing even faster than the prison 
population as a whole. According to CASA, from 1993 to 1996, the number 
of inmates needing substance abuse treatment rose from 688,000 to 
840,000. There is no reason to believe the problem has abated.
  Indeed, just last December, the National League of Cities adopted a 
resolution on the importance of drug testing and treatment in prisons. 
The League cited studies showing that among inmates who completed drug 
abuse treatment programs, only 3.3 percent were rearrested within the 
first six months after release, compared to 12.1 percent of inmates who 
did not receive treatment.
  It is clear that if we do not take steps to stop the revolving doors 
of our nation's prison system, we will continually be forced to spend 
more and more public money to construct more and more prisons. To avoid 
that result, we need to determine through testing which inmates are 
addicted to drugs and alcohol, reduce the availability of drugs in 
prisons, and ensure that inmates have access to the treatment they need 
while incarcerated.
  Some have advocated that every prisoner be tested before being 
released, a proposal that, to my knowledge, no State has adopted. As 
law enforcement officials in our States know, such testing would be 
extraordinarily expensive and unnecessarily broad. The better and more 
realistic approach is to provide resources that will enhance States' 
ability to do targeted testing, allowing corrections officers to use 
their judgment as to which prisoners are most likely to be abusing 
drugs while providing a deterrent effect for prisoners generally. That 
is the approach of this legislation I introduce today.
  I realize some of my colleagues may be concerned about funds 
originally designated for prison construction costs being used for drug 
testing and treatment. Let me assure you that states will retain 
complete flexibility under this bill as to how they allocate their 
Truth in Sentencing and Violent Offender Incarceration grant funds. But 
a powerful case can be made that it is in the fiscal interests of the 
States to take advantage of the opportunity this bill offers. According 
to the CASA study, it would cost States about $6,500 per year to 
provide comprehensive and effective residential drug treatment services 
to an inmate. In return, the study shows that society will see an 
economic return of $68,800 for each inmate who successfully completes 
such a program and returns to the community sober and with a job. This 
figure represents the savings in the first year based on the much lower 
likelihood that the former inmate will be arrested, prosecuted, or 
incarcerated, and includes health care savings and the potential 
earnings of a drug-free individual.
  Funding both testing and treatment allows us to take a carrot-and-
stick approach to a persistent national problem. We cannot hope to get 
a handle on our drug problem so long as drug abuse and drug trafficking 
persist in our prisons. We cannot afford the false choice between 
treatment and testing; both are needed to keep order in our prisons and 
safety in our streets.
  This view is confirmed by the people who work with these issues every 
day in my State of Vermont. For example, James Walton, Vermont's 
Commissioner of Public Safety, and John Perry, the Director of Planning 
for the Vermont Department of Corrections, wholeheartedly support this 
proposal. I have always valued their counsel, as they have first-hand 
knowledge of the real law enforcement needs in my state. They both feel 
strongly that the bill will give law enforcement the tools it needs to 
test and treat offender populations, both in jail and in the community. 
I hope and expect that this bill will have the same effect across the 
country.
  For that reason and all of the above reasons, I urge the Senate to 
take prompt action on this bill and support this effort to make our 
prisons drug-free.
                                 ______