Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, July 17, 1990 TAG: 9007180586
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV1 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: Neal Thompson/New River Valley Bureau
DATELINE: DUBLIN LENGTH: Long
Looking back, the Lee County native blames the LSD for putting him behind bars.
Tanner, 27, is one of about 280 inmates at the newly expanded Pulaski Correctional Unit No. 1, where he will serve the remainder of his 3 1/2-year sentence on various charges, including shoplifting, driving under the influence and reckless driving.
"My crimes were not drug-related. But I was under the influence of drugs when I committed them, which is the case with every one on my record," he said.
But only now, after 2 1/2 years in various prisons, is Tanner getting the help he needs to overcome his addiction and prepare him to face life when he gets out.
Tanner was one of 12 inmates to complete the prison's first six-week drug treatment program run by the Substance Abuse Services division of the New River Valley Community Services Board.
It is a local pilot program to show that agencies outside the prison can help inmates.
"I've been trying to get in a program like this ever since I've been incarcerated," Tanner said last week.
The 18 months he spent at Bland Correctional Center were spent on a waiting list for its drug program.
Before Bland, Tanner spent time at state prisons in Richmond and Powhatan. But neither had a program he could join.
Before that, he spent 18 months in the Lee County Jail, where he said it was easy to get smuggled drugs and alcohol.
"It was hard to stay sober there," Tanner said.
In Pulaski, he's had no choice. It's nearly impossible to sneak anything into the compound.
But also, Tanner said, the desire is not as strong.
"We help them recognize they have an illness," said substance abuse counselor Harley White. "It's not a willpower thing or a terrible weakness, it is a disease."
White conducts group therapy sessions and workshops on coping skills, attitudes, values and relationships with family and friends. White is on his third group of 12 inmates since community services joined forces with the prison in March.
The program is voluntary, but already there is a waiting list.
For some inmates, White is the first real counselor they've seen. And that is a big problem in the state's prison system, said Bill Evans, substance abuse coordinator for community services.
Some inmates can serve years in prison without ever learning that they have a problem, let alone learning what steps they should take to correct it, Evans said.
"You can't make a decision about a problem if you don't know what the problem is," he said. "We want them to ask, `Is this why I keep ending up in jail?'"
George Pennix, 23, an inmate from Lynchburg, said he finally learned that drugs were the reason he landed in prison because he would steal to support his addiction to cocaine, alcohol and marijuana.
"Drugs motivated me to do the things I was doing," said Pennix, who has served 2 1/2 years for robbery.
The program also helped him "recognize the things that make me want to get high."
"I always associated having a good time with getting high," he said. "Now I realize I can have a good time without the use of drugs."
Pennix said he also learned that he doesn't have to turn to drugs during the bad times either. He feels the sessions have helped him learn how to deal with depression without turning to drugs as a crutch.
But White said the hardest inmates to help are the dealers, not the users. It's difficult to break the addiction some inmates have to the fast cars and wads of cash they were used to on the streets.
"It's not just the addiction to the drugs, it's the addiction to the lifestyle," he said. "You see guys driving Lincolns, BMWs and Caddies. How do you combat that?"
When the six weeks are up, White encourages inmates to continue meeting with the prison's Alcoholics Anonymous and Narcotics Anonymous programs and to follow through with those programs when they are released.
The goal is to prevent recidivism and, ideally, to keep the prison population down, said Dave Soldato, the prison treatment program supervisor.
"We have seen some inmates again and again and we'd like to break the chain. I'm tired of seeing people come back," Soldato said. "If not, we're just going to keep on building more prisons. And that's not the answer."
Soldato said Pulaski's new program is a reflection of a shifting attitude among prison and parole officials in the state's Department of Corrections toward a more "treatment oriented" prison system.
But the Pulaski prison's superintendent, Dwight Perry, said the shift is a slow one.
"It's a long struggle and some want instant success. That's impossible," he said. "We're dealing with ingrained problems in people, in neighborhoods and in society."
And because drug programs at Pulaski and other state prisons are often the first programs inmates see, they may not work the first time. Or the second. Or even the third.
As Soldato put it: "So, they get out and go back to their friends and neighborhoods. But being able to say no to that [crack cocaine] pipe being waved in front of your face - that's the reality. It's not easy."
And without immediate results, it makes it more difficult to convince the state to give more money for programs like the one in Pulaski, said Susan Pauley, director of the board's substance abuse services.
But Anthony Tanner and George Pennix hope to be living proof that the program can work.
Both men say they hope to get into treatment programs when they get out next year. And they hope to be able to use what they learned at Pulaski when they get home.
Both are eligible for parole in early 1991. If and when they get out, they say, that will be the big test - going home.
Pennix says he is pretty confident he can avoid drugs when he gets back to the streets of Lynchburg, but he needs to avoid situations where others will threaten his recovery.
"If you hang out with others getting high, more than likely you'll get high again," Pennix said. "And I finally realized that they were the ones who helped put me here."
by CNB