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Should drug courts accept people with prior criminal convictions into treatment?
Las Vegas and Portland
- I mean, I have been using drugs all my life and I’m 48 now, so of course I’ve gotten a
criminal record.
- Yeah, because everybody needs a chance, everybody needs a chance. I don’t care who
they are or what they done did, if they want a chance to get their selves clean and straight
. . . then they deserve it.
- I think that is good because, you know, they should base everybody on an individual
basis, not just because you got a criminal record and I don’t. You know, what makes me
better than you? I just only got caught one time.
- I think that anybody that wants to do treatment should be able to do it. I think that even
the worst of the worst deserve a chance.
- Well, I definitely believe that everybody should be in the program and of course you learn
from the ones that have been through a lot more than you have. Everybody ought to be
admitted to the program whether they are first-time offenders or whether they have been
arrested on felonies. . . .
- But if it’s somebody that is basically within reason, everybody deserves a shot. I’m no
different than anybody else because I went out and did a criminal act before. . . .
- I’m also 48 years old and I’ve been using drugs all my life too. And the difference is that
instead of you paying tax money to house me in a jail house right now, I’m paying tax
money out of a paycheck. That’s different and a lot better too.
- That’s what I’m saying, I only got caught one time and that makes me better than you
because you wasn’t as slick and got caught more?
Back to The Treatment Experience
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| An Honest
Chance: Perspectives on Drug Courts |
April
2002 |
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