New criminal legal strategies towards a more effective inmate treatment (The KETHEA PROMITHEAS project)

 
In  2013 a major change took place in Greece regarding the legislation to drug addicted people. By the 4139/2013 law, for the first time, drug use is not considered as a criminal act. On the contrary, drug addicts considered as people, that should be treated more favorably in the court of law. Also for the first time, drug addiction therapy has been recognized as a way to deal with delinquent behavior. Although the actual aim, was the decongestion of prison population, for the first time officially, there was an admitted connection between drug use and delinquent behavior. Within the same year a new Therapeutic programme was inaugurated, offering its services in Northern Greece: KETHEA PROMITHEAS. 
Although the initial project-planning was anticipating up to 80 inmates receiving treatment within its premises in Thessaloniki Detention Center, after ten years the actual number of people receiving services are far from that. However, according to the Ministry of Justice, Transparency and Human Rights from the 10.645 inmates, 2159 of them were convicted for drug related offences. Since 2003 there is a steady 20% to 30% of inmates, with drug related convictions. Its only natural to ask oneself, why all these people are not seeking treatment missing considerable legislation benefits, that could even lead up to discharge.
The KETHEA PROMITHEAS research department throughout all those years administers two major questionnaires. The FTDI and the EuropASI. The first which is usually administered at the very start of treatment, is based on the Treatment Demand Indicator protocol designed to provide a uniform structure for reporting data on clients seeking care in drug treatment facilities throughout Europe. The former The Addiction Severity Index is a relatively brief, semi-structured interview designed to provide important information about aspects of a client's life, which may contribute to his/her substance abuse syndrome. It is the first step in developing a client profile for subsequent use by research and clinical staff. 
Data collected more or less throughout the past decade from these two tools, will be utilized to give us a glimpse of the profile of people sough help from the KETHEA PROMITHEAS Therapeutic Community within Thessaloniki Detention Center, in a quest to discover trends, that led to a successful completion of therapy or possible drawbacks to it. 
Practices very well established in Canada, USA and the common law juristictions in general dictate, that in order to intervene effectively to drug addiction, especially with addicts having issues with the law, has to be within a scheme, that incorporates psychology sociology and the Justice system. We will look at the Drug Court very successful practices and how these might be implemented by the Greek legal system. The 4139/2013 law although innovative at its time possibly is approaching a lift-up time and it seems that now, we have the scientific data to direct us to a more successful path.