Today, public opinion and increasingly public policy have come to reflect the realization that society is better served when nonviolent drug law offenders are in treatment rather than prison. For nearly 40 years, Phoenix House, has been helping drug troubled men and women gain their freedom-from both incarceration and from the prison of their addiction-and guiding them to recovery.

In 1967, on New York City's Rikers Island, we brought one of the first treatment programs into a correctional institution. Since then, we have treated many thousands of drug abusers in the prisons of California, Massachusetts, New York, Rhode Island, Texas, and Vermont. More importantly, additional thousands have been sent to Phoenix House residential programs by the courts as an alternative to incarceration.