Pubdate: Sat, 22 Dec 2007
Source: Saint Cloud Times (MN)
Copyright: 2007 St. Cloud Times
Contact:  http://www.sctimes.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/2559
Author: David Unze
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/coke.htm (Cocaine)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?159 (Drug Courts)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/rehab.htm (Treatment)

DRUG COURT PROVIDES ADDICTS A 2ND CHANCE

Damon Fuseyamore vividly recalls smoking "my last  nickel of crack" on
June 16, 1997, while sitting on the  steps outside his New York City
residence.

He said he owed loan sharks money and had been arrested  two weeks
before "with six nickels of crack and a bunch  of money."

He was charged with selling crack and was looking at  two to seven
years in prison. But he had another  option.

"I had a choice of doing jail time or changing my life  and going
through treatment," he said. "If you have a  choice between doing two
to seven or going through the  program and going into treatment, any
smart person  would take the program."

Fuseyamore, 45, and the father of a 10-year-old son,  celebrated 10
years of sobriety in June and has been a  mechanic for the New York
City Fire Department for six  years.

Fuseyamore's story is one of thousands touted by  supporters of
alternative drug courts.

The courts, which are multiplying across the United  States, began 18
years ago as an experiment to attack a  growing crack cocaine epidemic
in Miami. They rely on  treatment, rigorous supervision and
accountability as a  way to help, for the most part, nonviolent drug
users  rather than sending them to prison.

Growth And Savings

There are 2,016 drug courts in about 1,100 counties,  according to the
National Drug Court Institute. That  number, the institute says, is up
from 1,048 five years  ago and is almost 1,800 more than existed 10
years ago.

According to West Huddleston, CEO of the institute, a  2005 study --
the most recent available -- showed 70  percent of drug court
participants graduate the  program. Graduates reoffend at a rate of 17
percent on  average, compared with the 66 percent recidivism rate  of
drug offenders who do time in prison.

That study also showed the average cost of a drug court  participant
is $3,500, compared with annual prison  costs that range from $13,000
to $44,000 per inmate,  Huddleston said. A new study is due to be
released next  year.

Stearns County's adult drug court began in 2002 and had  admitted 136
participants as of September. It had  graduated 57 participants, and
those graduates'  reoffense rate was 11 percent, according to a
recidivism study conducted by the Stearns County  Attorney's Office.
The county in 2006 established a  family drug court, one of two in the
state at the time.

Alternative drug courts are funded by a combination of  federal, state
and charitable dollars. There is $15.2  million for the Department of
Justice Drug Court  Discretionary Grant Program in the 2008 budget
that  awaits President Bush's signature. In addition, the  federal
Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services  Administration has $10.2
million in the 2008 budget to  add treatment beds within operational
drug courts.

Supporters say more is needed.

"We're scratching the surface. I think it's critical  that a drug
court is in every county in America," said  Huddleston, who estimates
that 120,000 people are  served annually by the model, but more than 4
million  more could benefit from it. "Drug courts are the most
underutilized solution to America's drug problem."

"I see it as a systemic change in the way that courts  do business,"
said Ann Wilson, who coordinates  Missouri's drug courts.

Missouri, which had eight drug courts in 1998, has  added 100 courts
since then, Wilson said. Missouri has  more drug courts per capita
than any state and as of  Sept. 1 boasted 108 operational drug court
programs,  she said.

Minnesota had two drug courts at the beginning of 2002.  Within five
years, the state had added 17 drug courts.

The Critics

The program is mocked by some as adult day care or  hand-holding for
addicts, Huddleston admitted. Eric J.  Miller, an assistant professor
of law at St. Louis  University is among the unconvinced.

Miller said the drug court program takes away the  adversarial design
and uses the judge to engage the  defendant in a 12-step style program.

"That's not what judges do," he said.

Miller questions whether there is enough thought to  weeding out the
people drug court doesn't suit.

"A lot of thought has to be given to the types of  people it best
works for," he said. "I'm not saying it  doesn't work at all. But I
think there needs to be more  thought about who it works for."

As that learning process evolves, courts are having  discussions about
how drug courts will function ideally  if they go to scale and how to
reallocate existing  resources to keep drug court programs alive.

Ongoing research is invaluable to determining the  future of drug
courts, said Judge Robert Rancourt, who  runs a juvenile drug court
program in Chisago County.

"What it comes down to is it's a system where we're  trying to
determine the cost benefit of these courts  before we try to rapidly
expand them," Rancourt said.  "Set up standard guidelines so expansion
comes with the  proper systems."

Research shows that people who are highly addicted and  most at risk
to reoffend are the best fits for drug  court, said Dan Griffin, court
operations analyst for  the Minnesota Judicial Branch. A potential
danger is  mixing people in the same drug court program who have
varying severity levels of drug problems and risks of  reoffending,
Griffin said.

The Future

In the perfect world, every judge would be able to  recognize an
offender's substance abuse problem and  refer them to the appropriate
program at an initial  court hearing, Huddleston said. Highly trained
lawyers,  judges and treatment professionals would cooperate on a
daily drug court calendar that would alleviate crushing  caseloads in
other courtrooms, he said.

One fear Huddleston has is that the  institutionalization of drug
courts could water down  the concept and return the judicial system to
one of  "punishment and retribution" rather than one of  humanity,
rehabilitation and focusing on the underlying  problems driving so
much of criminal behavior.

"Drug courts have done an amazing job of undoing the  thinking within
the justice system that addicts are bad  people who can be punished
out of their drug  dependence," he said. "Instead, drug courts have
brought a way of thinking into the justice system that  says and shows
with data that addicts are redeemable  but they need some very
specific strategies employed on  them. They need long-term treatment,
they need  immediacy of response, whether sanctions or incentive,  and
they need ongoing judicial accountability."

Stearns County Attorney Janelle Kendall admits she,  too, was
skeptical about drug courts.

"Our drug court was certainly not the prosecutors'  idea," she said.
"Applause and counselors and asking  how offenders felt about their
treatment prospects was  not our usual way of getting offenders' attention."

The drug court concept seems to reach "what's left of  the humanity of
the drug addict," she said.

"They don't want to be like this, they know they do bad  things when
they use drugs, and at some point, the drug  court model seems to
reach them in a way that the  retributive part of behavior
modification does not. I  would have never believed that we'd find
that, so far,  getting into these offenders' heads and literally
forcing them to live in the real world drug free for  the period they
are in drug court works twice as well  as anything else we've tried so
far."
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