Quote:
Originally Posted by kane
Sending a junkie away for behaving like a junkie isn't helping anyone. That person is just going to get out of jail and return to a life a crime. The facts show that people who serve more than 18 months in jail will have a 83% recidivism rate. Clearly, the system isn't working. I would suggest if a junkie breaks into a car and steals a cell phone they first go to rehab then they do some kind of community service and/or volunteer work. We work to help them get some training so they can get a job and become a productive member of society.
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This is actually a fascinating problem. In rats for example, you can demonstrate the addictive nature of cocaine as they'll choose coke over food and water until they lose consciousness and die. This is the very problem with addition... that the problem is not at all about decision making, its about an inability to make quality decisions. And the benefit of the high will always outweigh the negative in the moment.
However, if you put the junkie into prison who stole a car stereo and he's not used for 6 months, then there is no addiction. He then has to make the conscious choice to go back to using drugs.
The other problem is that you can't treat addiction when the addicted person isn't ready to quit and desperately wanting treatment. Even then, the success rates for successfully treating addiction under ideal circumstances are very low.