Source: The StarLedger
1 Star Ledger Plaza
Newark, NJ 071021200
Email: "Putting them in jail wasn't working."

JUDGE STEPHEN THOMPSON
Camden County Superior Court

Wayne O'Toole of Camden, with his wife, Lisa, holds his mug shots that 
were given to him by Judge Stephen Thompson, who runs the drug court 
in Camden County. O'Toole, a former drug addict, successfully 
completed the rehabilitation program and was given his release by 
O'Toole.

Addicts get a second chance

Drug court gives offenders treatment, counseling instead of prison

By Kathy Barrett Carter 
STARLEDGER STAFF

  It's graduation day. The 30yearold, curlyhaired "valedictorian" 
in white jeans and a sleeveless blue rib shirt rises, looks out on 
the room and offers his speech.

  "My name's Wayne," he says, "and I am a drug addict."

  "Hi Wayne!" is the response from a gathering you will never 
encounter at a local high school auditorium. Here, wives break down 
in tears of joy, grown men embrace. There are no caps, no gowns, no 
pomp and no circumstance.

  This is drug court.

  And this graduation, in the court of Judge Stephen Thompson of 
Camden County Superior Court, is part of a nation's attempt to 
confront the legacy left by 20 years of the War on Drugs. With 
jails overflowing from mandatory sentencing and the legal system 
swamped with petty drug crimes, even some of the toughest lawand
order advocates are beginning to think there must be a better way 
to deal with drug offenders.

  This, they hope, may be it.

(photo)

A drug addict, known only as John, appears for his progress report 
in Camden drug court before Judge Stephen Thompson, background.

  Mushrooming across the nation, drug courts give addicts who are 
facing stiff prison sentences the choice of going into treatment 
instead. They operate on the premise that prison space should be 
reserved for bigtime drug traffickers while addicts, and 
ultimately society, will be better served by treatment. Camden was 
the first to get started in New Jersey. Three other counties have 
programs in the works.

  Hatched in Miami in 1989, the program now includes some 45,000 
people enrolled in 350 drug courts throughout the U.S., 
authorities say.

  Drug court uses a carrotandstick approach. Addicts are sent to 
treatment programs, offered job counseling, helped with family 
problems. 

  In exchange, they are supervised intensely by a judge and the 
probation department. Regular drug tests are  mandatory and 
escalating punishment, including prison, is imposed on those who 
relapse or fail to live up to the standard set by the program.
    
  Like many judges, Thompson, who oversees the longest running 
drug court in New Jersey, was frustrated. He did his job the old 
way for years and came to feel he was part of a philosophy that 
was simply filling up jails.

  "I was tired of seeing the same people. Putting them in jail 
wasn't working," said Thompson, who has been on the bench eight 
years.

  Before he could sentence someone to treatment, but he never 
knew whether they went. He never knew if treatment worked.

  It's very different for people sentenced to drug court as 
evidenced by the six graduates who came to celebrate their 
achievements on a recent warm spring graduation day.

  A middleaged bespectacled judge, Thompson comes down from the 
bench and stands like a proud father, congratulating and 
extolling the accomplishments of those who have made it through 
the program.

  The judge describes Wayne O'Toole of Camden as the 
"valedictorian" of this first graduating class.    

  For over a year, he has remained drugfree even after losing 
his job said Michaeleski, the drug counselor who worked with 
O'Toole.

  "The spiritual principles of recovery, you actually live them 
one day at a time. Recovery is tough. There was stress. You got 
married. You had a job loss. But you chose to stay clean," said 
Michaeleski.

  "All I did was smoke pot for six years," said O'Toole, 
telling a sad and familiar tale, making the graduation seem part
religious revival, part 12step recovery meeting. "By the grace 
of God I just celebrated a year of sobriety," he told the 
approving audience.

  Silent tears of joy streamed down the cheeks of Lisa, his 
wife, who before he entered treatment would not marry him even 
though they have a young daughter. She knew the old Wayne. She 
is reveling in the new Wayne.

  "It's amazing," she said later. "He even looks different. His 
skin looks better. He looks better."

  The Reality House outpatient program, which he had been 
ordered to attend, has "taught me how to live without using," 
O'Toole said.

  "Without this (the drug court) I would probably be sitting in 
Riverfront Prison," O'Toole admitted. "I would buy pot before I 
would pay my rent."

  When Richard Green, 60, of Collingswood was hauled into court 
more than a year ago he was unkempt and "reeked," recalled Anna 
Paladino, a social worker who works with the drug court. She 
frankly did not hold out much hope for him because of his age.

  It was a different story when the tall, lanky Green strode 
into the courtroom dressed in a gray pinstripe suit, a light 
blue dress shirt and looking every bit the church deacon.

  Cocaine, marijuana and beer were his drugs of choice, he said. 
Now, however, he can report being drugfree for more than a year.

  "I'm really proud of myself," said Green, with a bit of a 
southern drawl in his voice.

  When protective counselors rushed over to warn him that he 
might get more publicity than he bargained for talking to a 
reporter, he emphatically declared: "You can put my picture on 
the front page."

  The six graduates will be the high point of the day, later 
others who are still struggling with their addiction will come 
through Thompson's courtroom. For some, there will be good news 
to report. They are clean, working, attending treatment. Others 
have not done as well. Having failed to live up to their 
obligations, Thompson will not be so munificent. Two will be sent 
off to prison that day.

  "The link between substance abuse and crime is clear and its 
costs to society are overwhelming," said James J. Ciancia, 
administrative director of the courts, who has been pushing the 
concept of drug courts in New Jersey. "By bringing to bear a 
combination of treatment services and judicial sanctions, drug 
courts have been successful in shattering that link."

  Ciancia, a former Superior Court judge, called the drug courts 
one of the "most promising tools available to the criminal 
justice system."

  Fueled, in part, by federal dollars, the number of drug courts 
in both the planning and operational stages has tripled in the 
past year.

  The Clinton Administration has proposed $75 million for drug 
courts in fiscal year 1998Äa 150 percent increase over 1997. If 
Congress approves the expenditure, more than $1 million of that 
money is earmarked for New Jersey to help develop or expand drug 
courts in Hudson, Essex, Passaic and Camden counties, court 
officials here said.

  The Superior Court program in Camden County is expected to 
receive $385,000 to expand from 50 to 500 offenders and to 
provide a fuller range of treatment services.

  Hudson County plans to join just a handful of courts 
nationwide with a program exclusively for juveniles. It hopes to
get $250,000 for its project.

  Essex County is slated to get $375,000. Its program just got 
off the ground this month. Fifteen Superior Court employees will 
devote all or a portion of their duties to the program.

  Passaic will receive $20,000 in seed money to begin planning a 
drug court that will target nonviolent drug offenders who commit 
crimes in school zones and are in need of inpatient treatment.  
  
  Some see the drug courts as another arrow in the quiver of a 
system that must take a multidimensional approach to fighting 
drugrelated crime.

  Others see it is a rebuke of the gettough rhetoric of the 1980s 
which led to a huge boost in New Jersey's prison population as 
mandatory drug laws cast a wider net, ensnaring even lowlevel 
drug users.

  A year ago, Assistant Camden County Prosecutor Sally Smith, 
whose caseload includes drug court, said she would have balked at 
the idea of giving people caught with drugs a chance to go into 
treatment rather than prison. But after seeing how this program 
works, it has made a believer out of her.

  She has seen the most unlikely people transformed, she said.

  "I think more and more the law enforcement community is coming 
to the conclusion this is an extremely valuable tool," said 
Attorney General Peter Verniero. "I'm very supportive of it."