1. Relapsing Right Out of Prison
This is the story of a man in his 30s who used to be a fashion designer. He was caught taking ecstasy with friends at a club and spent 10 months in a detention center. Naturally, he thought, "Once this is over, I'll never touch it again." But the reality was completely different. The people he met inside the detention center were not there to quit drugs.
[Mr. A / Incarcerated in a Detention Center After Drug Use: They talk about doing drugs again when we get out, saying you can easily get them here, sharing that kind of information.]
They would boast about the feeling of taking drugs like it was a heroic tale, and many would resort to drugs the moment they were released.
[Mr. A / Incarcerated in a Detention Center After Drug Use: I've actually seen cases inside where someone received information a week before their release, made a purchase based on that info right after getting out, and came back in just a week later.]
There are internal guidelines to separately accommodate first-time offenders and repeat offenders, as well as users and dealers. However, the reality is that correctional facilities are so overcrowded
that living together happens quite often. This makes it possible to take what is called a "release high" to celebrate getting out. Having entered to quit drugs, they instead learn about new distribution networks. Can drug problems really be solved under this structure?
2. "Leaving Prison Is the End, Leaving Hospital Is the End"
What is the fundamental reason why a "release high" was possible? It is because a management vacuum occurs after release. Unless individuals voluntarily enter a rehabilitation facility, they are left neglected with the disease of drug addiction. Even if they experience a "release high," as long as they avoid detection by the judicial system, they believe they are fine. Prison is the end once released, and hospital is the end once discharged. The current system lacks linked operations among criminal punishment, prison incarceration, hospital rehabilitation, and the Together Step-by-Step Center operated by the Ministry of Food and Drug Safety, meaning people inevitably fall back into the temptation of drugs in between. While the Ministry of Justice and the Ministry of Food and Drug Safety are preparing to allow the Together Step-by-Step Center to coordinate such management, it is still largely insufficient. While punishment and crackdowns are important, it seems necessary to shift the axis of drug problem management toward treatment and rehabilitation to fill this management gap.
3. Zero State-Run Rehabilitation Facilities for Addicts?
Just quitting drugs is not enough to return to society. Future plans must be redesigned, and vocational rehabilitation must enable individuals to secure jobs so they do not need to turn to drugs again. Therefore, residential rehabilitation facilities where social rehabilitation takes place are necessary. Facilities that can serve as a bridge of recovery, connecting individuals back to society following criminal punishment, are needed. People do not go to prison for alcohol addiction, but they go to prison for drug addiction. Yet, there are four addiction rehabilitation facilities operated by the Ministry of Health and Welfare for alcohol addicts. There is not a single state-run "addiction rehabilitation facility" where former drug addicts can reside and focus solely on rehabilitation. The Incheon Darak introduced on the 8 O'Clock News
is a private communal living space, and private drug rehabilitation facilities like this are currently left in only two locations: Incheon and Gimhae. Due to the Education Environments Protection Act, "addiction rehabilitation facilities" cannot be established within 200 meters of schools, making it difficult to additionally build facilities in local communities. Because of these circumstances,
Incheon Darak is also registered and operated as a "communal living facility," meaning it does not receive subsidies as an addiction rehabilitation facility.
4. What About Overseas?
The United States also once only intensified punishments like us, but as the recidivism rate continued to rise, it created a system called "drug courts" starting in 1989, and there are currently about 4,000 locations. Instead of unconditionally enforcing sentences on drug offenders, they are made to undergo treatment, and judges directly monitor the treatment process.
[Steven O'Neill / Judge: If you skip (urinalysis) again according to the rules, I will prosecute you immediately.]
[Suspect: Yes, Your Honor. Thank you.]
The results were astonishing. The recidivism rate of those who completed the program dropped about threefold. Australia was similar. There was more than a twice difference in the recidivism rate between those who completed treatment and those who dropped out halfway.
5. "The Opposite of Addiction Is Connection"
A new facility has opened at Seoul Eunpyeong Hospital. It is a drug management center that connects treatment and rehabilitation. One of the recovery support workers working here was formerly addicted to philopon and cannabis, and after undergoing rehabilitation at Incheon Darak for three years and six months, became someone who reaches out to hold the hands of other addicts.
[Lee Dong-jae / Recovery Support Worker: Through recovery, I think I filled my life with healthy new connections. It seems the opposite of addiction is connection.]
6. Prisons Must Become the Starting Point of 'Rehabilitation', Not Where People Learn 'Release Highs'
Chongju Women's Prison is running a program called the "Recovery Connection Course." Watching the classes directly, it was a place where inmates learned how to manage drug impulses, participated in group counseling, and designed their futures.
[Participant B / Recovery Connection Course Participant: Approaching it by finding myself, finding my inner self first, it was actually too difficult in the beginning.]
Participant B now has a dream of helping others who fell into drug addiction like herself.
[Participant B / Recovery Connection Course Participant: Actually, the end of a drug problem is prison, a mental hospital, or death. I thought I had to live. I didn't want to die.]
In addition, inmates participating in the Recovery Connection Course live separately in the "Recovery Connection Room." Living together, they rely on and cheer for one another. The effects of the Recovery Connection Course were clear. Those who finished the program saw a 27% decrease in substance dependence and a 38% increase in their willingness to stay off drugs. Conversely, for general inmates, substance dependence actually increased and their willingness to stay off drugs decreased.
[Jeon Byung-mi / Correctional Officer, Drug Offender Rehabilitation Division: They are just staying in prison. Doing nothing. They can't possibly have any stimulus to think, 'Ah, I need to recover, I need to escape this addiction.']
The problem is that far too few people can take this program. This year's nationwide target number is 230 people. That is only 8% of the drug-using offenders accommodated in prisons last year.
[Jeon Byung-mi / Correctional Officer, Drug Offender Rehabilitation Division: The Recovery Connection Course must definitely be maintained, and in more prisons—what I want is for every prison that has a Drug Offender Rehabilitation Division to run it everywhere.]
It is time for a transformation so that prisons do not become places where people learn a "release high," but rather the starting point of addiction rehabilitation. The government will continue to crack down heavily on drugs. That is absolutely necessary. But what I felt while reporting was just one thing. The fight against drugs does not end with an arrest, but truly ends only when it leads to recovery. Isn't it time for our country to also ask together, rather than "How many people were caught?", "How many people returned to ordinary lives?"]
(Reported by Lee Se-hyeon | Produced by Shin Hee-sook | Video by Choi Dae-woong | Video Editing by Ahn Jun-hyeok | Graphics by Yang Hye-min | Footage courtesy of Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency | Produced by SBS Digital News)
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