You look at people who have a long history of drug addiction and they will, inevitably, be driven to keep committing crimes whilst ever they're drug addicted. What they really need is to whole heartedly embrace a rehabilitation program.
They are not going to get that in prison so, you send somebody to prison knowing full well that the underlying problem of addiction is not going to be addressed and sooner or later they're gonna come out and they're gonna commit more offences because of that problem. On the other hand, if you send them off to a rehabilitation place they may go in the front door and walk out the back door and go and commit more offences anyway.
So you're constantly torn between the two options. Do I put this person in prison and protect the community from his or her behaviour for a period time? Or, do I try to go down a more therapeutic process that may, on the one hand irritate the law and order brigade, but on the other hand might ultimately provide a long term solution.
