NCJ Number
178552
Journal
Penal Issues Issue: 10 Dated: March 1999 Pages: 6-8
Date Published
March 1999
Length
3 pages
Annotation
This article suggests various approaches to implementation of France's 1970 law on drug abusers, with emphasis on sanitary and penal measures, national statistics, and a local survey.
Abstract
The 1970 law defines three points in the penal process at which compulsory care may be required for drug abusers: (1) at the outset of the judicial process as an alternative to prosecution; (2) during the judicial process with an order of medical surveillance; and (3) at sentencing where the court may impose treatment. The tendency has been to focus on the first approach, particularly in the context of compulsory care for drug abusers, and national statistics on compulsory care characterize measures prescribed by prosecutors and monitored by health services. A local survey of drug abusers in Paris involved two cohorts subjected to compulsory care in 1995. The first cohort included users for whom treatment was ordered under a prosecutor's injunction, while the second cohort included persons sentenced to suspended imprisonment with parole and compulsory care for drug-related offenses. In the first cohort, treatment on prosecutor's injunction was primarily applied to men. Only 38 percent of individuals subjected to prosecutor's injunction had no previous judicial history. The average duration of sanitary monitoring of drug abusers was about 4 months, and the option taken was usually a specialized center or a hospital. Individuals in the second cohort had serious judicial and sanitary antecedents and monitoring lasted 26 months on average. During the monitoring period, individuals consulted an average of 1.67 health units. Monitoring occurred in a specialized center in 44 percent of cases, in a hospital in 41 percent of cases, and in a private physician's office in the remaining 15 percent of cases. 1 reference, 1 table, and 1 chart