Addiction Solution Source

Most people in the prison system are there because of drugs. Why do you think?

Could some of it be that the persons body chemistry was out of balance and they were self medicating to try and find an answer and that is why they started using drugs in the first place?

Research has also shown that many violent kids have had an unbalanced biochemistry. Violence often leads people to prisons.

Don’t you think that the people in charge of our prison systems would look at all possibilities to lower prison violence and recidivism. Like maybe they should test prisoners and see if they are biochemically out of balance? Or, at least they could give a very nutritious meal?

Professor Stephen Schoenthaler from California State University, Stanislaus, has some fascinating research that should enlighten all of us.

In the past 25 years, Professor Stephen Schoenthaler’s work has appeared in many prestigious scholarly journals worldwide and he has published over 40 peer reviewed articles and 150 professional presentations in addition to having multiple television specials devoted to his work. What interests many is his discovery that the use of vitamin-mineral supplements was able to reduce, on average, prison rule violations 38% in California using supplements that cost 4 cents per day, with a savings to taxpayers in a ratio of $1 invested in supplement returning $1,000 to the State within one month. This research has been repeated and confirmed by Oxford University in England and other researchers in The Netherlands.

How did Dr. Schoenthaler figure a ratio of $1 invested in supplements returns $1,000 within a month to the Department of Corrections?

According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics document entitled “Prison Rule Violators,” there is an average of 1.75 violations per inmate per year, but 8% average 11 or more per year. Approximately 20% are violent without injury and 10% are violent with injury. Rule violations typically result in administrative actions that result in sanctions such as a loss of good time (that allows early prison), segregation, solitary confinement, and occasional criminal prosecution by local district attorneys.

The costs associated with rule violations include:

a.. Medical bills from violent offenses
b.. Additional time to be served due to loss of good time credits
c.. Worker’s Compensation claims for injuries to staff
d.. Litigation against the institution filed by inmates

The most expensive is the loss of good time credits. Most systems reward good behavior with one to two days off the sentence for each two to four days of good behavior allowing an inmate to be released after serving one-third of the sentence for a clean record. Rule violations tend to generate between 2 and 6 months loss of good time, depending on the seriousness of the violation.

An example follows: 100 men received supplements that cost $4.00 per week for the group. Nationally, since they should commit 175 detected violations per year. This would equal 3.36 for the week. Since 38% less should occur on supplements, this equals 1.28 less violations per week for the $7.00 cost.

The cost of incarceration today is about $80,000 per year. Assume that the 1.28 less violations would have resulted in 1 six-month loss of good time or a savings of $40,000 per year at a cost of $4, a 1000 to 1 ratio.

This model assumes: (1) the cost of the tablets; (2) 1.75 violations per offender per year; (3) incarceration costs of $80,000 per year per offender; and (4) that 4/5ths of each violation results in a 6 month loss of good time. Different assumptions can increase the savings. For example, since we have been able to raise the violence reduction to over 50% today, not 38% any longer, (using supplements that cost 7 cents apiece) that would save 1.68 incidents per week per 100 offenders. When multiplied by $40,000 per year, that produces a savings of $67,000 for the $7 invested.

We have found that the reduction in medical bills more than pays for the supplements and the distribution daily by medical technicians by a factor of 10. We also found that both worker’s compensation claims and lawsuits by inmates against the institution dropped 15% within the first month producing substantial savings.

The second most costly problem is the occasional serious violent attack on staff in which the offender is criminally prosecuted in court, receives a third strike, and is given a life sentence that costs several million for the offense. (50 years @ 80,000 per year = 4 million). With 200,000 offenders behind bars in California at a cost of $20 each per year, just one less attack resulting in 1 less third strike per year would pay for the entire program independent of the savings due to reduced population with less good time being lost.

Prison officials – are you listening??