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84 Prison J. 3 (2004)

handle is hein.journals/prsjrnl84 and id is 1 raw text is: INTRODUCTION TO A SPECIAL ISSUE: CORRECTIONAL DRUG TREATMENT OUTCOMES-FOCUS ON CALIFORNIA HARRY K. WEXLER National Development and Research Institutes, Inc. MICHAEL L. PRENDERGAST UCLA Integrated Substance Abuse Programs GERALD MELNICK National Development and Research Institutes, Inc. Currently, more than 5 million Americans are under criminal justice supervision, and more than 2 million are incarcerated, the highest rates in the nation's history both in numbers and in the percentage of the population (Glaze, 2002; Harrison & Karberg, 2003). The Bureau of Justice Statistics (Mumola, 1999) has reported that more that 75% of inmates in state prisons can be characterized as drug-involved and that more than 80% of these offenders had been under some form of correctional supervision at least once before. This special issue is a direct descendent to the 1999 special issue of The Prison Journal, Drug-treatment Outcomes for Correctional Settings (Simpson, Wexler, & Inciardi, 1999). The earlier issue focused on 3-year outcomes, whereas this issue describes the work in California over the last 10 years. During this period, California has been a leader in terms of numbers of programs implemented and the integration of in-prison treatment and community aftercare. California has implemented 32 prison-based programs (25 male and 7 female), with funding for 6 months of community aftercare. The California Department of Corrections has connected its prison treatment expansion to prior research and has supported an ongoing program of evalua- tion to guide its efforts. The results of these evaluations have had a substantial influence on policymakers in California and throughout the country with respect to the further development of correctional programming for drug- abusing offenders. The article Correctional Substance-Abuse Treatment Programs in Cali- fornia: A Historical Perspective provides a background to the articles in this THE PRISON JOURNAL, Vol. 84 No. 1, March 2004 3-7 DOI: 10.1177/0032885503262447 0 2004 Sage Publications 3