BESSEMER DRUG COURT PROJECT REACHES 200-GRADUATE MARK

April Adams described herself as the kid parents warned their children not
to hang with.

She sold drugs. She was also enslaved to her own addiction.

Della Perkins was a good actor.

She hid her crack cocaine addiction from her family for at least two years.
Going to jail last year revealed her secret.

Both Bessemer women spent the past year fighting their drug demons through
an intensive drug program via drug court. Friday, they joined 20 others in
graduating from the program.

The 2-year-old Bessemer Cutoff drug court has now graduated 200 people. The
cutoff includes about half of Hoover along with much of western Jefferson
County.

Drug court is designed to keep from crowding the prison system by locking
up those convicted of drug possession. Participants pay for their own
treatment and are also required to perform 50 hours of community service,
said District Judge Eric Fancher, who administers the program.

Criminal records are expunged upon completing drug court.

"We are able to keep them out of prison, and those who are unemployed, we
help find them jobs," Fancher said.

The program is divided into two levels, depending on the severity of the
addiction. Level one participants are enrolled for about six months. Level
two participants receive more stringent help over 12 months.

Adams, 22, and Perkins, 46, battled their addictions for at least a year.

Adams said she was addicted to marijuana, alcohol and an array of pills. "I
was addicted to the money and to the drugs," she said of her drug dealing
enterprise. She dabbled in manufacturing methamphetamines.

"I'm glad I didn't get caught with that," she said.

Completing the program was not easy, she said.

"I had to go to jail a few times," she said. "I was hard-headed."

Perkins said she hid her addiction by "acting as I normally would. I didn't
spend all my money like a fool."

Her guise worked. "I lived in the same house with my sister, and she didn't
know," Perkins said.

She, too, struggled while completing the program, but the thought of going
to jail for an extended period scared her straight.

"I couldn't go to jail," she said.

Recidivism, so far, has been low, Fancher said. "I can think of only a
couple who have had to come back," he said. About 200 or so are in the
program now.

Drug court saves the taxpayers money because those arrested for felony drug
possession are not automatically sent to prison. Fancher said it costs $26
a day to house a prison inmate. Six months in prison costs taxpayers about
$4,500.

Six months in the drug court program comes to about $950, which is paid by
the individual and not the state. "We're actually saving the taxpayer quite
a bit of money," Fancher said.

Perkins said she is going to act as if she is still in the program now that
she is finished. Adams said she is about to start her first real job. She
starts the University of Alabama at Birmingham in January. She plans on
becoming an occupational therapist.

It sounds like a cliche, but Adams said she would be dead or in prison if
not for drug court. "There is no such thing as a retired drug dealer," she
said. "I would have killed somebody, they would have killed me or I would
be in prison."

Adams said an old acquaintance recently asked is she could sell them dope:

"I said `Yeah, I can hook you up. Come to church with me Sunday.'"