Substance Abuse and Recidivism in the Ex-Offender Community (Blog Post Five)

            On a road trip recently from Denver, Colorado, to Houston, Texas, a friend and I encountered a checkpoint just across the Oklahoma state line. It came out of nowhere, which is funny considering that it’s Oklahoma, home of flat, rolling plains and the dust bowl. We sat calmly in our car behind the other cars on the interstate, waiting for our turn with the mirrored glasses-equipped law enforcement officers, and wondering aloud what all the fuss was about. My friend thought perhaps there was a fugitive on at large who was seeking to cross into Colorado and smoke some weed. As the words emerged from his mouth, our eyes locked, and her hand snaked down toward the glove compartment, where there were three joints rolled in anticipation of our reunion with good friends in Oklahoma City. How could we have forgotten they were there? What were the cannabis possession penalties in Oklahoma? Were we about to be arrested?

Drug abuse and trafficking and offender populations have come under much scrutiny lately as new cannabis laws seek to help shape and determine the prison sentence length of drug-associated offenders in the penal system of the United States. Numerous questions have arisen concerning the relationship between drug abuse, drug possession, and the incidence of recidivism in the ex-offender community. Clearly, drug abuse is a factor in ex-offender populations, both in initial imprisonment likelihood and recidivism after release. According to the Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP), “Nearly seven million American adults are under supervision of the state and Federal criminal justice systems: approximately two million of these individuals are incarcerated for their crimes, while the remaining five million are supervised through probation or parole” (2014). 14 percent of female and 25 percent of males incarcerated report substance abuse counseling, and 8 in 10 reentering offenders report drug or alcohol use in the six months prior to incarceration. This indicates the drug abuse is a significant contributor to incarceration, which is already a known issue; however, the prison system and counseling services provided to prisoners and ex-offenders must integrate this knowledge into their programs. Ex-offenders with drug and alcohol abuse programs are highly likely to fall back into abuse patterns with the pressures of release and society reintegration that present themselves.

The ONDCP notes that two-thirds of incarcerated people are substance abusers or dependents, but less than 15 percent of them receive treatment while incarcerated, upping the ante on recidivism and repeated substance abuse once they are released back into society (2014). One-fifth of male and one-quarter of female substance abusing ex-offenders return to prisons, as compared with 12 and 19 percent of those with no substance abuse problems. It is also true that more substance abusers violate parole conditions and commit more crimes than those without drug and alcohol dependencies; it’s a vicious cycle that results in higher penalties for both society and the penal system (Huebner, 2014). Substance abuse must be addressed initially within the penal system in order to prevent recidivism and increase the success of societal reintegration after offender release. Ex-offender counseling and drug and alcohol abuse continued treatment is also required in order to prevent recidivism in parolees as well as those released from the penal system.