TreatmentThe focus of this paper is incarceration versus treatment of low level drug offenders in California. The viewpoint in favor of incarceration is supported by the deterrence and incapacitation theory. This theory promotes increased arrests, prosecutions, and prison sentences as the primary means to dissuade drug use and street crime by removing the offender from the community. The theory further states that by implementing stricter sanctions targeting low level drug offenders further reduces drug related crime by increasing the personal costs of drug use among incipient users. Opposing arguments state that by simply punishing the offender it does not address the underlying causes of drug use and addiction. The people that hold this standpoint feel treatment would be an effective solution. My viewpoint coincides with the later argument. I feel the costs as well as the effectiveness of treatment outweigh that of incarceration. I plan to discuss costs and effectiveness respectively, in regards to each viewpoint. According to the California Department of Corrections (CDC), it costs an average of $21,470 per year to house an inmate in a California state prison. The breakdown of this amount is as follows (in average costs per year): $193 reception/ diagnosis, $9,833 security, $3,263 health care, $6,892 cost of living, and $1,288 for inmate work/training. In addition, Pape of Los Angeles states that the capital cost of building one prison cell is approximately $80,000. Focusing on treatment, the estimated annual cost is $2,500 per offender (Pape). Take for instance a 200-person sample. It would cost nearly 4.3 million dollars to house those 200 people in a California state prison versus the cost of approximately $500,000 for those same 200 hundred people to participate in an offender specific drug treatment program. Not to mention the “on-street” savings of the offenders who successfully complete the program...
