Pubdate: Thu, 16 Nov 2000
Source: Poughkeepsie Journal (NY)
Copyright: 2001 Poughkeepsie Journal
Contact:  PO Box 1231 Poughkeepsie, NY 12602
Fax: (845) 437-4921
Feedback: http://www.poughkeepsiejournal.com/news/forms/letter_form.htm
Website: http://www.poughkeepsiejournal.com/
Author: Mary Beth Pfeiffer, Poughkeepsie Journal
Note: Part 2c of a 3 part series

The Prison Explosion, Part 2c

DRUG TREATMENT SUCCESSES FALL SHORT OF ADVOCATES' GOALS

Alternative To Prison Advanced

 From the time he was 8 or 9, growing up in Brooklyn, Sha-Kim Fitzgerald 
was in trouble. He worked his way up from shoplifter to drug user to drug 
addict to drug seller. Last March he was arrested on Main Street in the 
City of Poughkeepsie on drug-dealing charges -- for the second time.

But this time, it turned his life around.

After three months in an intensive drug treatment program at the former 
Willard Psychiatric Center in upstate Seneca County, Fitzgerald envisions a 
future that doesn't include drugs, prison or dependency.

"I don't plan on being a survivor anymore," said Fitzgerald, 27. "I plan on 
being successful. I do have a destiny."

Fitzgerald, who also has completed a three-month county day-treatment 
program, is one success of an innovative alternative to simply sending drug 
offenders to prison.

Instead of a lengthy prison term -- often 3 1/2 to 7 years -- offenders 
with specified second felony convictions can opt to go to the Willard Drug 
Treatment Campus for just three months, with parole supervision for the 
balance of their term. Willard costs $5,600 per 90-day stay; if the inmate 
took the prison option, it would cost $29,700 a year. Fitzgerald chose Willard.

Opened in 1996, the 862-bed center is part of Gov. George Pataki's effort 
to "right-size" the prison system by reducing the numbers of nonviolent 
drug offenders who would be better off in treatment than prison. The 
proportion of nonviolent offenders hit a high of 49 percent in 1995; it has 
since dropped to 47 percent.

The question, for many, is whether Willard is working. State officials say 
they have no studies on the rates at which Willard participants return to 
prison -- despite the belief expressed by many in the criminal justice 
community that people like Fitzgerald are the exception rather than the rule.

"Since opening, Willard has not been filled with the intended inmates," 
said a report last May by the Citizens Budget Commission, a New York 
City-based fiscal watchdog group. "Judges and prosecutors were reluctant to 
use Willard because they felt the 90-day program was not effective or harsh 
enough for second-time offenders."

Hence, Willard has been filled mainly with parole violators and has not 
been successful, the report stated.

Majority back in prison

A Poughkeepsie Journal study found 57 percent of inmates who went to 
Willard from Dutchess or Ulster County in 1997 returned to prison by early 
2000. By contrast, the Journal found a return rate of 40 percent for local 
inmates released from prison in 1995 -- two years earlier.

"You'd be surprised how many go through Willard and come back here,'' said 
Dutchess County Court Judge Thomas Dolan, who nonetheless is happy to have 
the program as a sentencing option. "They're just not learning anything."

Some do benefit, however.

"I have the feeling it did a significant amount of good for a number of 
people,'' said former County Court Judge George Marlow, now a Supreme Court 
judge.

Followup urged

"Willard is improving," said Frank Chase, an assistant district attorney 
who prosecutes drug cases. "The strength of any drug program is the 
aftercare and followup policy" -- which he and others said was initially 
lacking.

State officials said there was discussion of lengthening the program, in 
light of complaints that it was too short to have an impact.

Dutchess County District Attorney William Grady said the county has been 
approached about participating in a pilot program that would involve a stay 
at a residential treatment program after release from Willard in addition 
to routine outpatient care.

The problem may also relate to the nature of addiction.

"People are not necessarily going to succeed the first time out, the second 
time or the sixth time," said David Steinberg, Dutchess chief assistant 
public defender. Many treatment programs are needed besides Willard, he 
maintained, to roll back the overuse of prisons for drug offenders. "We 
need to tailor sentences to the needs of the offenders."