Pubdate: Sun, 01 Jul 2001
Source: Appeal-Democrat (CA)
Copyright: 2001 Appeal-Democrat
Contact:  http://www.appeal-democrat.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/1343
Author: Lois Gormley

COURTS ALLOWING PEOPLE ANOTHER CHANCE

Rehabilitation Effort Helping Participants Face, Overcome Their Demons

At 2:30 p.m. on a Tuesday, a Sutter County courtroom is alive with people 
clustered in small groups, chatting, smiling and reacquainting themselves 
with one another.

For some, this is a weekly ritual, for others a bi-weekly one. But, for 
all, it is a necessity - not merely to satisfy a court requirement, but to 
nourish the bond that has blossomed between those who are in one phase or 
another of Sutter County's Drug Court program.

Drug court, originally conceived of in Florida in 1989, was designed to 
provide habitual drug users with an alternative to incarceration, focusing 
instead on rehabilitation through counseling, intense supervision and drug 
testing.

Both Yuba and Sutter counties have drug court programs. Yuba County's has 
been in operation for five years and was the first of its kind in Northern 
California. Sutter's has been in operation just over a year.

The objective is to break the cycle of criminal activity and addiction, 
said Sutter County Judge Chris Chandler, who presides over drug court.

Established in Sutter County in January 2000, there have been approximately 
30 drug court participants to date.

The program can accommodate up to 25 people at a time. Since its inception, 
five people have graduated from the stringent one-year program and two more 
are expected to graduate this month, Chandler said.

Three have failed to complete the program and were sent to state prison 
while two others, who couldn't comply with the requirements, were put back 
on felony probation and have been admitted into one-year residential 
treatment facilities, he said.

None of the participants have reoffended, Chandler said.

"I suspect that within the next five to 10 years, as more efforts are made 
to see why people go back to drugs, we'll be more successful than we are 
now," Chandler said.

A test of positive for drugs in the Sutter County program will result in 90 
days in jail the first time and 120 the second. Continued offenses could 
result in removal from the program.

Chandler said he sees the implementation of Proposition 36 as complementary 
to, but different than drug court.

In each county, drug court incorporates a team of professionals from 
probation, mental health, police and sheriff's departments, the district 
attorney's and public defender's offices, who meet weekly.
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