Flexistentialist
Bluelight Crew
- Joined
- Jun 24, 2002
- Messages
- 1,742
Carr announces 'drug-jail' for NSW
Australia's first compulsory drug treatment jail is to be established in New South Wales, targeting serial drug offenders.
New South Wales Premier Bob Carr says he will release draft legislation before the end of the year detailing the initiative.
Mr Carr says it will be modeled on similar programs in the United States and the Netherlands and will see repeat drug offenders locked up and forced to undergo total abstinence.
The trial program will initially deal only with adult male offenders from western Sydney, but if successful, will be extended to female offenders.
I'm not sure whether this is a step in the right direction. I wonder what the success rates are for forced abstinence. For people who actually want to stop using, this might just be the break they need to get off.
But what about everyone else who's being forced into treatment? What happens when they're released from "drug jail"? I don't think this will prove very effective in keeping people drug free in the long term.
I suppose treatment is better than punishment, but this seems to be a mix of the two.