Drug treatment for prisoners
From Emma Soames Sir: The research that RAPt has conducted over the last ten years bears out the findings of lain Murray (Let them eat porridge', 18 January).
Treating lawbreakers in prison for substance abuse — heroin being the big player — works. RAPt runs 11 primary treatment programmes in British prisons, and independent research tracking RAPt graduates within the first two years of their release from prison shows that reconviction rates among this group are half those shown by similar groups of untreated prisoners.
While we do not wish to enter the prison/community debate, as a charity providing the only fully researched and accredited programme in a prison setting in this country we can affirm that abstinence-driven treatment for addicts in prison certainly works. Indeed, in many cases, it is a miracle to behold.
Emma Soames
Chair of the Trustees, Rehabilitation of Addicted Prisoners Trust, London SW2
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