Pubdate: Wed, 19 Jun 2002
Source: Bakersfield Californian, The (CA)
Copyright: 2002, The Bakersfield Californian
Contact:  http://www.bakersfield.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/36

GIVE DRUG COURTS NEW LOOK

A revived role for drug courts should result from a recent study revealing 
the historical effectiveness of these courts.

The study was made by the Judicial Council of California and the state 
Department of Alcohol and Drug Programs. The Judicial Council is the 
state's court administration and policy-making agency.

The drug court partnership program brings together on a regular, 
coordinated and relatively seamless basis public and private agencies and 
resources to deal with convicted drug offenders.

Specially trained judges and probation officers work with qualifying 
defendants to seek both diversion from expensive incarceration and curing 
the addiction -- with strict accountability for compliance by the defendant.

Drug courts have slipped from prominence since the November 2000 passage of 
Proposition 36. The ballot initiative required diversion from prosecution 
and jail for most low-level offenders.

Unless the drug use was part of a much greater crime, the act required 
offenders to be given probation, treatment and, ultimately, have charges 
dismissed for conviction of possession, use, transportation for personal 
use, and being under the influence of controlled substances, even if such 
charges were violation of previously imposed parole conditions.

The differences between the two approaches are control and selectivity. In 
drug courts, judges always had the threat of immediate jail or prison to 
deter participants from deviating from the program. In addition, not 
everyone could qualify, and lapses of conditions of the program were not 
mandated to be forgiven, as they partly are under Proposition 36.

Under Proposition 36, that strict and close court control has been weakened 
substantially and cannot be imposed even for a second lapse of treatment 
conditions, except in rare instances.

Drug courts were part of a national movement started in 1989 and initiated 
in California in 1993. In Kern County the courts were pioneered by Superior 
Court Judge Frank Hoover, now a family law court judge. There are three 
drug courts in the county.

The state study showed that many participants in the drug court program 
were not mere recreational or intermittent drug users, but people with 
severe multiple addictions, high rates of homelessness, chronic 
unemployment, poor education and severe social involvement or estrangement 
from families.

Virtually all those pathologies improved significantly among successful 
"graduates" of the program.

There also was a huge decrease in arrests and conviction of participants in 
the first two years after completion of the program. State and local 
governments saved approximately $43 million in a nearly two-year period 
from September 2000. The savings came from a combination of avoided prison 
and jail terms, as well as payment of fines and fees by program participants.

The report is the first of several the Judicial Council will issue on the 
subject. We hope future ones compare how traditional drug courts work 
compared with Proposition 36.

We hope they will show how drug courts can be more purposefully and 
usefully integrated in a program that combines the best attributes of drug 
courts and Proposition 36's greater application but less control.
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MAP posted-by: Beth