Pubdate: Tue, 26 Feb 2008 Source: Roanoke Times (VA) Copyright: 2008 Roanoke Times Contact: http://www.roanoke.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/368 Note: First priority is to those letter-writers who live in circulation area. DRUG COURTS FACE ANOTHER TRIAL New budget straits again put this effective crime-fighting program at risk. These are tight budget times in Virginia, and one place the House of Delegates is scrimping in the next biennial budget is on drug courts. Doing so would be a false economy likely to cost state taxpayers more in the end. House negotiators should restore the money during budget talks with senators this week to hash out a compromise 2008-10 state spending plan. Sunday, Charlottesville Daily Progress political columnist Bob Gibson drew public attention to a House Appropriations Committee cut of almost $6 million from 14 of Virginia's 29 drug courts. Gibson quoted committee member Watkins Abbitt, who said federal grants for the program had disappeared, and "It is one of the luxuries I don't think we can afford." He pointed out that judges can order drug offenders to get treatment as a requirement of probation. But Virginia's drug courts do much more. Nonviolent addicts diverted to the drug court docket can avoid jail time by agreeing to treatment supervised by a judge, with increasingly severe sanctions attached for participants who slip up. They have to be drug free for 12 months before graduating. A Virginia Tech study several years ago found that more than two-thirds of 261 participants did graduate, and only 7 percent reoffended. Still, in 2002, the state -- as today, in financial straits -- cut money for drug courts despite their high success rate, which came at a fraction of the cost of incarceration. Eventually, the state directed federal grant money to the program. The program proved its worth then. Albemarle Sheriff J.E. "Chip" Harding -- a Charlottesville police narcotics investigator and supervisor for more than 10 years before becoming a county sheriff - -- argued its continued worth in a letter to Abbitt: "Obviously, if an offender can overcome their addiction they are much less likely to commit not only a drug offense but other offenses that are typical of an offender trying to support a habit." The courts are not a luxury, but a cost-effective barrier against crime. - --- MAP posted-by: Derek