Though on paper the choice to stop using drugs is theirs the reality is an environment which is stacked against their interests and can hardly offer any incentives. It is an environment which encourages use. It might be argued that prison is not for the purposes of rehabilitation but, in keeping with Home Secretary Michael Howard's views, more to do with retribution. Both of these negative views can be disregarded. We have returned to the circle of hopelessness, and the root cause is the lack of conviction and consensus in what prison is for.
Individuals commit offences and use drugs, and the two are linked in a million different ways.
It is simply naive to assume that all offending by drug users can be attributed to their drug use. What we have to do is to start to construct some models of intervention that address the needs of a broad range of individuals. We have to assess accurately how and why drug users become involved in crime, at the same time as we examine their attitudes to their offending and their drug use, and where they are now, before we can deliver the sort of service which will address the problems they say they have. At the same time we have to ensure that inmates leave prison with a different attitude to drugs and offending than they came in with. This requires a range of responses on site of which the drug-free wing or prison is but one option.