Pubdate: Thu, 09 Jun 2005
Source: Winston-Salem Journal (NC)
Copyright: 2005 Piedmont Publishing Co. Inc.
Contact:  http://www.journalnow.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/504
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?159 (Drug Courts)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/testing.htm (Drug Test)
Note: The Journal does not publish letters from writers outside its daily 
home delivery circulation area.

SAVE THE DRUG COURTS

Whoever coined the phrase "pennywise, but pound foolish" must have had
the N.C. General Assembly in mind. The Senate's plans to end most
drug-court financing will save a few pennies now but cost extra pounds
later.

The state Senate cut the $1 million appropriation that currently goes
to the state's 32 drug courts. With that money gone, there will be
only enough money in the budget to employ two state drug court directors.

Judge Lisa Menefee, who oversees Forsyth County's adult drug court,
has best described the move: "shortsighted." Drug courts save money in
the long run and help turn people who might be headed for a life of
crime in the right direction. Drug courts serve nonviolent offenders
who are accused of drug-related crimes. They provide treatment rather
than incarceration, but they also include rigorous monitoring.
Participants must appear in court twice a month, attend treatment
sessions and support-group meetings, undergo frequent drug tests and
be available for unannounced home visits.

This approach works. National statistics show that recidivism among
drug-court participants is far lower than for those who are sent to
prison. That means that fewer of these offenders are breaking the law
again, inflicting pain on other citizens. And fewer are spending their
lives in an expensive cell, being fed, clothed and cared for medically
by state taxpayers.

Forsyth's 9-year-old drug court is already feeling the pinch of the
Senate decision. Gene Williams, its director, stopped taking new
participants a month ago. He, like the directors of the other 31 drug
courts, is scrounging for private grants and maybe some federal money
to keep the courts operating. The federal government may not be much
help. The 32 courts had already asked the state to pick up some $2.2
million extra this year because federal grants are expiring. There is
still some hope that the House will reinstate the money and save the
drug courts.

The Senate's decision to eliminate drug-court financing makes even
less sense when the state's rapidly growing prison population is
considered. North Carolina faces enormous pressure either to curb that
population growth or find hundreds of millions in construction dollars
for new prisons. Rather than cutting drug courts, the Senate should
have been expanding them while looking for other ways to divert
nonviolent offenders from prison.

But finding the long-term solution is not something that North
Carolina's shortsighted legislature often considers. Fram oil filters
may have said it best with its 1971 TV slogan: "Pay me now, or pay me
later."

The Senate's pound-foolishness lies in its willingness to pay much
more later for prisons than a few dollars for prevention and treatment
today.
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