Addicts Helping Addicts to Help Themselves: The Baltimore City Jail Project (From Drugs, Crime and the Criminal Justice System, P 361-381, 1990, Ralph Weisheit, ed., -- See NCJ-123316)

• NCJ Number: 123330
• Author(s): M S Hamm
• Date Published: 1990
• Length: 21 pages
• Grant Number(s): N1G T.A. 88-J1272
• Sale Source: Anderson Publishing Co
• Publication Type: Program Description (Model)
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America

Annotation

Because there are no official programs for drug abusers in the Baltimore City Jail (Maryland), prisoners have developed their own program of reformation which is perceived by inmates, guards, teachers, and psychologists as being a model treatment regime.

Abstract

Because of a dramatic rise in narcotics use in Baltimore, the jail has become seriously overcrowded and treatment programs are almost nonexistent. The self-help group, called Confined Addicts Seeking Help (CASH), is based on a moral self-help approach designed to build an intense unity and esprit de corps among inmates who are addicted to drugs. It is led by a "Dictator" who has risen to power within the prisoner subculture, and who controls the CASH economy and its systems of law and government. The effectiveness of CASH can be measured in terms of the organization's ability to coerce prisoners into following the activities and regulations of the group. Although the group runs the risk of violating its fundamental purpose due to its internal political structure, it appears to relieve many of the psychological and physical deprivations associated with the deplorable conditions of confinement at the Baltimore City Jail. 1 figure, 3 tables, 1 note, 57 references.