I've done some prison teaching too.

Surely the point of prison is - for the vast majority of prisoners - to enable them to return to society able to deal with other people better than they have done?

In the case of drug addiction fuelling crime, the best place to look at is undoubtedly Portugal, where all drugs were decriminalised 13 years ago, with the result that the crime fuelled by drugs has simply drained away. No more profit for dealers, no more violent crimes and robberies to get the money to pay them. If you're caught with drugs (other than a small supply for your own use), you have the choice of going to jail or registering as an addict. If you register as an addict you get free drugs and a rehabilitation programme that includes help with housing, work and psychological problems.

One of the results, less obvious to those who've never had any experience with drugs, is that addicts always get the same dose. (A big danger for those using *illegal* drugs is that the dose is variable - you don't know how much you're taking, because you don't know how much it's been diluted; and also you don't know what nasty substance the drug may have been diluted with.)

It's worked so well in Portugal that I can't understand why other countries don't do it.

Drug criminals - those who sell drugs or those who commit crimes to buy them - are a huge, huge proportion of those in jail in most countries. Get rid of the profits by decriminalising, and you get rid of many crimes.

We're living in a Prohibition society - it's just that the prohibited intoxicant is drugs now, not alcohol.

Non-drug-related violence is another story. Most of it is actually drug-related, but there's none of the social help provided for alcohol abuse that Portugal provides for drug use.

One very successful programme countering violence in prisons is the mainly Quaker AVP - Alternatives to Violence Programme - which teaches people how to resolve conflicts without anger and without violence. Very useful. Some of the threads here could do with it ;)