Source: New York Times May 27, 1997 Contact: New Court Lets Drug Addicts Choose Treatment Program Instead of Jail http://www.nytimes.com/yr/mo/day/news/national/nydrug.html By CHRISTOPHER S. WREN In a chill November day in Brooklyn, Bonnie Hussey tried to finance her craving for cocaine by selling crack to an undercover police officer. Within hours, Ms. Hussey was standing, handcuffed and disheveled, before Judge Jo Ann Ferdinand. The judge gave her a stark choice: Stand trial and risk a stretch in prison, or plead guilty and enter a drug treatment program. Ms. Hussey, 25, is one of nearly 400 drug offenders, most of them women, who have accepted the Brooklyn Treatment Court's alternative to doing hard time inside New York's jammed prison system. The program, which started last June, is the first in New York City, but others have been started throughout the country and they are increasingly viewed as a better way to salvage nonviolent addicts before they harden into predatory criminals. Without the court's intervention, Ms. Hussey might have been in prison for a year without being treated for her addiction. Six months later, Ms. Hussey recalled her arrest without bitterness. "It sounds funny," she said, "but I'm glad I sold drugs that day to the undercover cop. I know I had a problem, but when people sell drugs they're in denial, and I was really in denial." Drug courts work on the assumption that it makes more sense to save scarce prison cells for bigtime drug traffickers and divert the addicts into cheaper, more productive treatment programs. "It's such an interesting idea that you say, 'Why didn't I think of that?'" said Judge Ferdinand, who presides over the Brooklyn Treatment Court, on the ninth floor of the Brooklyn Supreme Court Building. Not everybody can get into the program. The Brooklyn court is so new that it can accommodate only defendants arrested in roughly half of the borough, and they must be drug abusers with no history of violence. Most officials are not concerned that drug addicts are given priority. "We can't forget the fact that these people were arrested for felonies," Erica Perel, an assistant district attorney, said. "They didn't come in because they wanted treatment. They came here in handcuffs." Once in treatment, participants are closely watched. If they use drugs or fail to keep treatment or court appointments, they face graduated penalties, from a day in the jury box watching what happens to other offenders to a return to a jail cell. But if they complete the treatment, which can last up to two years, their criminal record is erased. The offenders also receive counseling and health care that includes tests for AIDS and tuberculosis. Detailed histories of the defendants are compiled in the court's computer system, giving Judge Ferdinand instant knowledge of the crimes for which they were arrested, the severity of their addiction and every occasion when they fail to appear in court or flunk a urine test. "My goal is to have them understand that I know everything about them," the judge said during an interview in her chambers. "With each person, you're trying to figure out what it will take to move them through the recovery process, and what the court can do." Since the first drug court opened in Miami in 1989, 47 states and Puerto Rico have established drug courts or plan to do so. Judge Jeffrey Tauber, president of the National Association of Drug Court Professionals, said 200 drug courts had been set up across the country and that as many more were planned. The Clinton Administration has budgeted $75 million to support local drug courts in the coming fiscal year. "It's seen as a pragmatic, very realistic approach to a problem that is not going to go away," said Judge Tauber, who started the drug court in Oakland, Calif., in 1990. "No one wants to put less serious offenders in custody when jail space is so expensive and so limited." The concept, which New York State's Chief Judge Judith S. Kaye supports, looks likely to be adopted in other boroughs. David Bookstaver, a spokesman for the Office of Court Administration for New York State Courts, said the courts required cooperation from each district attorney's office and the Legal Aid Society. "We're in the process of speaking to each of them," Mr. Bookstaver said. In New York, drug courts are also operating in Rochester, Buffalo, Syracuse and Central Islip in Suffolk County. California has no fewer than 51 drug courts. Despite its relatively late start, the Brooklyn Treatment Court is expected to become the nation's largest, thanks in large part to $5.5 million in Federal funds over the next five years from the Center for Substance Abuse Treatment and $1 million from the Justice Department. Treating drug offenders instead of locking them up appeals to many prosecutors and defense lawyers who are weary of coping daily with the detritus of drug addiction. "As a criminal defense lawyer, you so frequently feel that you're at one wreckage site after another," said Valerie Raine, who set aside her own legal defense career to run the Brooklyn court program. "Here there is a real sense that we are building a new way that will treat people." There have been some complaints that drug courts pressure defendants into pleading guilty. "It is coercive, no question about it," Ms. Raine said, "but my feeling is the other systems haven't worked for anybody, not for the client nor the community." No offenders have yet completed the Brooklyn court program, but Ms. Raine said that the latest figures on April 25 looked encouraging. Of 1,035 people brought to the court on felony charges, 433 were found eligible for treatment. Of those, 342 were placed in treatment programs, and 281 are still there. The 82 percent retention rate is dramatically higher than for voluntary drug treatment programs. Dr. Mitchell S. Rosenthal, the president of Phoenix House, the nation's largest drug treatment program, said: "There is very solid data that coercive treatment works. It makes an enormous amount of sense to treat people who are intersecting with the criminal justice system." Any notion that drug courts coddle criminals is dispelled once Judge Ferdinand takes the bench. One recent morning, she dispatched a sullen young man who kept smoking marijuana while in treatment to a jail cell on Rikers Island for five days. "Your choice is very simple," the judge snapped. "You can either spend the next year in jail or you can get serious about keeping your side of the agreement. Let me know Monday if you're serious about it." And a crack addict who failed to show up at her mandated treatment program was brought to court in handcuffs. Judge Ferdinand sent her, too, to Rikers Island for a long weekend. The system of graduated sanctions begins with making someone whose urine showed traces of drugs sit in the jury box for a day, watching what happens to other offenders who fail to behave. "They learn that their lawyer is not going to talk the judge out of the consequences of their actions," Judge Ferdinand explained. Her stern demeanor melted into a smile when she complimented the progress made by Rondel Ramsey, a jaunty young man in dreadlocks and a baggy sweatshirt. "It made me feel good, like she really expected it of me," Mr. Ramsey said later. But for the judge, he admitted, "I'd be selling drugs." When Ms. Hussey, a high school dropout who peddled crack to finance her cravings for marijuana and cocaine, was offered treatment, she said, "I took it as a joke these people are crazy." But very soon, Ms. Hussey said, "I realized these people aren't playing. I came up with a few dirty urines and I realized they were going to send me to jail." She has settled down in an outpatient program called Bridge Back to Life and reconciled with her mother. Now she wants to earn her high school equivalency diploma and go to college. Ms. Hussey's progress was apparent in her styled dark hair and the crisp dress that she wore to her latest court appearance. Judge Ferdinand said that women especially take more pride in their grooming as they step back from drug addiction. "I hope it's an indication of what's happening inside," the judge said. "They no longer look like someone you'd want to sit as far away from on the subway." Copyright 1997 The New York Times Company