Pubdate: Thu, 12 May 2005
Source: Beaufort Gazette, The (SC)
Copyright: 2005 The Beaufort Gazette
Contact:  http://www.beaufortgazette.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/1806
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?159 (Drug Courts)

DRUG COURT'S PROOF IN PUDDING

Full Government Funding Needed To Help Change Lives

Beaufort County's Drug Court -- like others across the state and
nation -- is working well and deserves continued full funding. The
court is delivering solutions to one of society's most vexing
problems: drug and alcohol abuse. It tackles the root of the problem
rather than pretend it can be solved by arresting suspects time after
time and throwing them in jail.

The Drug Court can keep defendants out of jail, but it's not an easy
way out. It has been called "Alcoholics Anonymous with teeth" because
it can be both touchy-feely and threatening. The program offers
intensive addiction treatment to nonviolent offenders rather than hard
time. The 12- to 18-month program is costly to defendants, with a
personal price tag of $1,500. They must keep a job, and commit a great
deal of time and effort to changing their own lives. It involves
random drug testing over a long period of time. And if participants
mess up, they are dismissed and go straight to conventional sentencing
with a guilty plea already on record.

But even if drug treatment may seem mushy, the results are clear. Of
the 66 offenders admitted to the program since it began in this county
in late 2001, only one program graduate has been re-arrested. Fifteen
were terminated during the program, 23 graduated and 28 are enrolled.
Those who succeed end up with more than a clean criminal record. More
importantly, they have a new beginning in life. They have new
connections. They have new tools and new confidence to battle the
addiction that reaches its harmful tentacles into the lives of so many
crime victims, acquaintances and loved ones.

The traditional criminal justice system does not disappear. The Drug
Court enriches the system by offering a different approach at the same
goal: rehabilitation. Jail time is supposed to change lives for the
better, but too often the opposite happens.

Statistics nationwide indicate that the Drug Court concept is reducing
the repeat arrests that clog the judicial system and ruin lives.
Manning Smith, the judge of the Beaufort County Drug Court, has gone
above and beyond the call of duty to help the program succeed. He says
he has daily contact from someone in the program. "It's the personal
connection that makes the difference," he said.

He wants to expand the program to handle more defendants. He wants to
make it a nonprofit so it can accept private donations. But it needs
full financial support from Beaufort County, the Town of Hilton Head
Island and the city of Beaufort. Beaufort sent fair warning that it
could no longer support the program after the current fiscal year. It
should reconsider and think of the many ways its $30,000 allocation is
actually an investment in lives and in the reduction of other
government expenses.

The positive results from the local court deserve full government
support.
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MAP posted-by: Larry Seguin