Alex Smith

Emily Auman
3/10/2021
R C2001-111

Public-Facing Major Issues Essay

This essay will break down the cycle of drug use, alcohol, and crime and how it is one of

the United States’ most significant challenges. This certain issue sure does turn a lot of heads and

gets attention daily, so how do we rectify it? What is the proper way to get people the treatment

that they need? The criminal justice system sure is taking strides in the right direction, but I

believe there is more they can do. Over the past twenty-five years, the U.S. prison and jail

population reached an all-time high and the number of people on probation and parole doubled.

In 2009, nearly seven million individuals were under the supervision of the state and federal

criminal justice systems (ONDCP 2021). I believe if we are going to take the right steps forward

we can’t be incarcerating every individual that does something illegal or disobeys the law. The

Administration’s National Drug Control Strategy supports comprehensive change within the

criminal justice system. ONDCP encourages the implementation of a continuum of evidence-

based interventions to address the needs of the offender while ensuring the safety of the

community (ONDCP 2021). We need to always put the community first, but with that being said

we need to be able to intervene in such a way that it will change parolees’ lives for the

betterment of themselves and everyone around them.

Despite all the interference from the criminal justice system way, too many offenders

return to abusing drugs and crime upon their reentry into society. I believe part of the reason for

this is because it is all the offenders have ever known their whole life and that many of them will

always deal with chronic substance abuse, which is a disease that to many substance abuse

offenders are not properly treated for and never get corrected. The Administration’s National

Drug Control Strategy supports comprehensive change within the criminal justice system,
Alex Smith
Emily Auman
3/10/2021
R C2001-111
promoting the implementation of a continuum of evidence-based interventions to address the

needs of drug-involved offenders while ensuring the safety of the community (The White House

2021). Being able to treat people before their abuse of drugs is incurable will always be key

because noticing those signs early on will help probably save their life. We need approaches such

as support services and community supervision for the offenders trying to reintegrate back into

the day to day.

The government has committed their time by developing and implementing programs to

make smarter investments in our criminal justice system, which will help us be able to point out

that addiction is a disease and that the system will steadily improve the health and safety of our

communities. A number of these innovative programs we hope will share the same goal of

breaking the cycle of drug use in people and crime, which will help ensure the public’s health

and safety of all the citizens in our communities. Researchers have begun to question

incarceration due to factors such as expanding prison populations, the economic burden placed

upon society, the negative consequences and side‐effects for offenders, and the apparent

ineffectiveness of incarceration as a long‐term crime prevention technique (APS 2021). They

have brought in unique and better ways to help tackle the problems of drug‐related offenses such

as diversion strategies and reintegrative programs.

No one is surprised by the complex interconnections among drugs, alcohol, violence, and

criminal behavior (The Recovery Village 2021). Statistics repeatedly bear out the strong

association between substance abuse and crime, some of which are violent in nature (The

Recovery Village 2021). We need to keep in mind that substance abuse and drinking will lead to

some type of outlandish behavior that will not be reported to authorities and won’t ever make it
Alex Smith
Emily Auman
3/10/2021
R C2001-111
into the criminal justice system. Drug abuse and alcohol have both been connected to criminal

behavior and can be used as a coping mechanism by those who may have a long rap sheet of

crime to drown their problems. In other words, they are interwoven, but that does not mean there

are no solutions to drug-related crime and violence (The Recovery Village 2021). Not just people

in criminal justice but friends, family members, and others are going to need to be able to tell the

difference between the two and that will always be important because both are about just as

terrible as the other.

Since alcohol has been legal and available to the public for a while now it has always had

an especially strong link with violence and crime. Forty percent of all crimes today are

associated with alcohol use and approximately 37 percent of offenders serving in jail report

drinking at the time they were arrested (The Recovery Village 2021). Alcohol is considered to be

one of the biggest factors as well in violence between people who know one another. Around

two-thirds of victims attacked by a current or former spouse or significant other reported the

involvement of alcohol, compared to only 31 percent of stranger-related violence victims (The

Recovery Village 2021). I have personally known people who were really close to me who

struggle with alcoholism so that’s why I believe it shouldn’t be taken lightly, especially when it

can take a life from you in an instant or paralyze you for the rest of your life.

The one constant theme that all these crimes and substances have the most in common is

that the key to breaking up the cycle of drug addiction and crime is effective addiction treatment

that is proven to work and won’t be faulty. Even though a substantial amount of jail and prison

inmates may qualify with having a type of substance abuse disorder few of them are actually able

to access any resources they need for treatment while incarcerated. It has been shown that
Alex Smith
Emily Auman
3/10/2021
R C2001-111
offenders who serve out their sentences and get released without having undergone any type of

addiction treatment are almost certain to relapse and begin abusing drugs and alcohol again.

More than likely they will end returning to in a broken system that seems to rarely reach out to

help them with what they really need and that would be to be treated.

Addiction treatment is more complicated than incarceration, but it has been shown to

produce a positive return on investment (The Recovery Village 2021). Every dollar spent on

addiction treatment saves nearly six dollars because of fewer arrests and incarcerations, as well

as lower medical, child welfare, and public benefit costs (The Recovery Village 2021). Alcohol

and drugs are always linked to some sort of crime. Incarceration may take someone out of the

environment that allows him or her to use, but the real key to breaking the link between drugs

and crime is professional addiction treatment (The Recovery Village 2021). We are fortunate

enough that there are still organizations and people out in the world that is ready to help as well.

If you know someone close to you that is struggling with alcohol or drug abuse problems please

contact some organization or program that will help them get on the road to recovery. Taking

that first step for yourself, your friend, or others is always the most important.

The US prison system is trapped in a revolving cycle of drug-related crime all the time.

Even worse, most drug-dependent criminals are released back into society with the same

problems that got them locked up in the first place (NewScientist 2021). Clearly, we need a

better system that is actually going to work and I get that they are making strides in the right

direction, but this country sure does need a lot of direction.

Alex Smith
Emily Auman
3/10/2021
R C2001-111

Works Cited

Criminal justice reform: Breaking the cycle of drug use and crime. (n.d.). Retrieved March 01,

2021, from https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/ondcp/criminal-justice-reform

O'Callaghan, F., Sonderegger, N., & Klag, S. (2011, February 02). Drug and crime cycle:

Evaluating traditional methods versus diversion strategies for drug‐related offenses. Retrieved

March 12, 2021, from

https://aps.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00050060412331295081

Drugs, crime, and violence: Exploring the connections. (2021, March 09). Retrieved March 12,

2021, from https://www.therecoveryvillage.com/drug-addiction/news/drugs-crime-violence-

exploring-connections/

Aldhous, P. (2006, July 29). Breaking the cycle of drug addiction and crime. Retrieved March

12, 2021, from https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn9634-breaking-the-cycle-of-drug-

addiction-and-crime/

Breaking the cycle of drug use and crime. (2011, November 3). Retrieved March 12, 2021, from

https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/blog/2011/11/03/breaking-cycle-drug-use-and-crime