Prioritizing prison over drug treatment costs Kansans safety and money | Commentary

Kansas has a drug problem.

It’s an issue driven not only by the challenges faced by Kansans suffering from addiction, but also a flawed criminal justice system that fails to treat these illnesses and help people change their behavior. And it’s costing state taxpayers dearly.

In the past 10 years, prison sentences for drug offenses in Kansas have spiked 33%, despite overall arrests in the state dropping during the same period. An estimated 75% of people leaving Kansas prisons need substance use and recovery support. At the same time, harsh penalties hang over people who are on probation or parole in the state, including being sent back to prison for minor violations often driven by addiction, like failing drug tests or missing appointments.

Sending people to prison who have drug addictions and have violated probation and parole conditions is straining our system and our wallets. Prison admissions for drug offenses and supervision violations cost the state $84 million in 2019 alone. And these costs don’t even account for the price of increased drug arrests and drug sentences to probation.

Facing a budget shortfall due to the pandemic, Kansas simply cannot afford to allow these alarming trends to continue. We must act now by making strategic improvements for a better path forward. Dedicated practitioners on the Kansas Criminal Justice Reform Commission have recommended a package of criminal justice bills which my colleagues in the legislature should pass this session.

People in our state need help treating their addictions. But right now, we’re incentivizing committing serious crimes, as a person must be convicted of a felony to access state treatment for drug addiction. House Bill 2026, already passed in the House, will help correct this issue, allowing people to receive treatment before conviction. HB 2146, currently under consideration, will strengthen the system further by updating our drug sentencing grid to target more people struggling with addiction and funnel them into treatment sooner.

Research consistently shows that community-based treatment can reduce drug use and drug-related criminal behavior. While a prison sentence for a drug offense cost $26,188 in 2019, a sentence to existing treatment cost just $3,143. The bottom line: Not only is treatment a more cost-effective use of taxpayer dollars than prison, but it works.

Prioritizing treatment instead of prison is key to ensuring healthy and safe Kansas communities, but it’s only part of the equation. We need to give judges and probation and parole officers more support when it comes to helping people change their behavior by pursuing evidence-based supervision practices.

We also need to help people returning home from prison access employment, food assistance, housing and education so they can maintain drug-free lives. Right now, there are more than 400 regulations in Kansas that prevent people with criminal records from working. These bills would help reduce these barriers so people can afford to pay their fees, fines and restitution to victims, succeed on community supervision, and stay out of prison.

Many other states have made similar improvements with much success. In North Carolina, lawmakers lowered sentence lengths for probation and parole violations while bolstering access to treatment and giving community supervision officers more flexibility to help people with addictions. As a result, the state saw a 25% drop in prison admissions for supervision violations, subsequently averting more than $543 million in taxpayer costs. The state was able to close 11 small prisons and reinvest savings in 175 additional probation and parole officers, strengthening the community supervision system and improving outcomes across the board. Meanwhile, reported crime in the state declined 29 percent from 2011 to 2019.

States like North Carolina realized that it’s fiscally irresponsible to waste millions keeping people incarcerated for low-level offenses or violations when prison beds should be prioritized for people who commit the most serious crimes. Kansas can do the same.

Passing these bills will give people the tools they need to become productive, law-abiding members of our communities while relieving the burden on our taxpayers.

This story was originally published February 25, 2021 at 11:16 AM.