Pubdate: Mon, 27 Jun 2005
Source: Sun News (Myrtle Beach, SC)
Copyright: 2005 Sun Publishing Co.
Contact:  http://www.myrtlebeachonline.com/mld/sunnews/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/987
Note: apparent 150 word limit on LTEs
Author: Tim Whitmire /The Associated Press
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?159 (Drug Courts)

DRUG COURTS WORRY FOR FUTURE

Funding In Jeopardy Despite Proven Results, N.C. Officials Complain

CHARLOTTE, N.C. (AP) -It was a graduation ceremony like many others. Ellie 
Andrews got a diploma. Her 31/2-year-old daughter Abbey applauded and later 
licked the icing off a celebration cupcake.

But the commencement speaker was a judge, who congratulated Andrews for 
completing a nearly yearlong treatment program in Mecklenburg County's drug 
court, where the course work included staying clean for more than 340 days 
and never missing a court or counseling session.

"It was hard and time-consuming, but it was worth it," said Andrews, 30. 
"It's much better than the alternative."

For Andrews, the alternative was a prison term of at least two years. 
Instead, she ended up in the drug court, an option offered to some 
nonviolent offenders charged with drug and alcohol-related crimes that 
studies have found to be more effective than traditional drug-treatment 
programs.

Despite the program's successes and the support of local and statewide 
court officials, the drug courts in Mecklenburg County and more than a 
dozen other judicial districts around the state are in peril as legislators 
in Raleigh negotiate a budget for the next two years.

The Senate's version of the budget cuts nearly all of their operational 
budget of just more than $1 million. Sen. Scott Thomas, D-Craven, one of 
the budget writers, says the courts can be run using existing resources and 
untapped federal drug treatment funds.

But without state money, Mecklenburg County officials say they'll have to 
shut down their drug courts by Oct. 1. Even if the money is restored, there 
remains a deep conflict between the locally run courts and the state 
Administrative Office of the Courts, which is trying to standardize drug 
court operations and spending across the state.

"I don't understand it," said Phil Howerton, the Mecklenburg District Court 
judge who congratulated Andrews at her graduation last week. "Come on, 
guys, this works. Why kill it?"

On that point - that drug courts work - there appears to be little debate. 
Mecklenburg County's drug court, the state's first when it opened in 1996, 
today handles more offenders than in any other in North Carolina and has 
been held up as a national model.

A state study released in March reported 2004 graduation rates of 35 
percent and a retention rate of more than 65 percent for all of North 
Carolina's drug courts. Although that might appear low, national studies 
have found that 80 percent to 90 percent of drug abusers don't even make it 
to the one-year mark of traditional treatment programs.

Numerous studies of the nation's more than 1,100 drug courts show 
participants are substantially less likely to be re-arrested or convicted 
than nonparticipants. One recent national study, which included N.C. 
drug-court graduates, found that 16.4 percent of 17,000 drug court 
graduates were re-arrested and charged with a felony.

Estimates of money saved by drug courts, which can substitute for 
incarceration and are aimed at preventing future arrests, trials and prison 
time, vary, but supporters agree the long-term payoff is substantial.

"It works," said Rep. Becky Carney, D-Mecklenburg, who successfully 
insisted the House budget include the money for the drug courts left out of 
the Senate version. "Why would we try to stop something that has got a 
proven track record?"

The question of state funding is before a conference committee working on a 
compromise spending plan. Thomas, the senator who handles courts budgeting, 
said he was ordered by the Senate's top budget writers to find spending 
reductions beyond those recommended by Democratic Gov. Mike Easley. He said 
the Senate's cuts don't mean the end of drug courts.

"It was our intent for the drug-treatment courts to continue to exist with 
existing personnel," he said.

Howerton and others in Mecklenburg County, where the court system already 
is overburdened, dismiss that logic. Drug courts here and elsewhere have 
operated for years on a patchwork of local and state funding and federal 
grants, many of which were designed to offer only one-time seed money.

Statewide, the 15 adult drug courts in 14 judicial districts around the 
state - from Avery and Watauga counties in the mountains to New Hanover 
County at the coast - served 1,002 participants in 2004.

Participants undergo at least a year of intensive group and individual 
counseling. They are required to find work, pay $10 a week toward the costs 
of their treatment and are monitored with drug and blood-alcohol tests. 
They can graduate - with charges dismissed and probation terminated - only 
if they have been clean for three to six months. For those not making the 
grade, there are consequences. Before Andrews' graduation, Howerton sent 
three participants to jail for one-or two-day stays, with one going 
straight from the courtroom to the county lockup across the street. Two had 
missed multiple treatment sessions. Another had tested positive for cocaine.
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