Researchers at UCLA have received funds to study the impact of
recent legislation aimed at reducing the number of drug offenders
sent to prison in California.
The UCLA Neuropsychiatric Institute’s Integrated Substance
Abuse Program received a $3.4 million grant from the National
Institute on Drug Abuse to study the consequences of Proposition
36, the Substance Abuse and Crime Prevention Act.
Proposition 36, which was passed by California voters in
November 2000, gives first- and second-time drug offenders the
option of entering drug rehabilitation programs instead of facing
jail time.
Researchers involved in the Proposition 36 Treatment System
Impact Study will receive their grant over a five-year time period,
as they study the proposition’s impact on the drug treatment
system and on the drug offenders themselves in five different
counties in California.
Yih-Ing Hser, the study’s director and a professor of
psychiatry and biobehavioral sciences, said the investigators will
initially focus on interviewing county administrators and mental
health professionals who deal with drug offenders.
Researchers hope to discern the perceptions and attitudes of
these workers, and what sort of barriers they must overcome in
implementing Proposition 36, Hser said.
The second part of the study will be devoted to interviewing
patients, she said.
Both supporters and opponents of Proposition 36 are pleased that
its effects are being studied.
“(Evaluation) is a very important part of the
program,” said Proposition 36 proponent Whitney Taylor,
director of the Drug Policy Alliance’s Proposition 36
watchdog group.
She explained that the study must focus on what has happened to
the drug offenders since being released from treatment
programs.
“We have to look at the individual as a whole and not
judge them by their addition,” she said.
Taylor also said that preliminary reports have been very
favorable.
Proposition 36 opponent Larry Brown, executive director of the
California District Attorneys Association, said that it is
imperative that the proposition’s effects on
California’s crime rates be studied.
“There’s no secret that drug abusers oftentimes
commit robberies “¦ to support their very expensive
habits,” he said.
Brown said that public safety officials are worried about the
impact of allowing drug offenders back into the community.
“It was a sweeping change in the law, and one that rightly
needs to be scrutinized,” Brown said.
Another consequence of Proposition 36 is drug offenders who have
completed their required treatment programs are eligible to have
their drug charges dismissed.
For students who have taken advantage of the drug rehabilitation
programs offered through Proposition 36 and who are eligible to
receive financial aid from the federal government, they will no
longer be in danger of losing financial aid awards. The federal
government currently can keep convicted drug offenders from
receiving federal aid for college.