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