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Giving prisoners diagnosed with opioid dependence methadone treatment reduces both violent and non-violent crime rates by a third, a new study from Simon Fraser University has found.

In a media release, SFU’s Somers research group, who led the study, said: “patients in the B.C. criminal justice system were taking methadone for less than 50 percent of their doctor prescribed length. In addition, for the time the patients were maintainingtheir methadone treatments, violent and non-violent crimes dropped by 33 percent and 35 percent, respectively.”

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The study looked at 17 years of data and was recently published in Addiction, a leading science journal.

According to the Somers Group, this is “the first comprehensive study to analyze the links between medication and crime.”

Using big data computing power, the research group was able to analyze every single person in B.C.’s criminal justice system from 1998 to 2015.