LIEUTENANT GOVERNOR HIJACKS PROBATION

Pet project: Fearful officials keep pushing Kathleen Kennedy Townsend's dud
of a program.

IT WOULD be political dynamite to touch. But Lt. Gov. Kathleen Kennedy
Townsend's Break the Cycle anti-drug initiative must be reshaped if
Maryland wants to overhaul its dysfunctional probation system.

Instead of prison, her innovative pilot program was supposed to offer 9,000
addicted but nonviolent offenders a life free of drugs and criminal
behavior. Treatment, not incarceration, was the idea. For taxpayers and
citizens, it was supposed to provide greater public safety -- and cost savings.

But after two years of operation in Baltimore City and six counties, the
experiment simply doesn't work.

She knows her pet project is flawed. The problem is that Ms. Townsend has
made Break the Cycle the cornerstone of her criminal justice strategy. So
much of her political capital is invested in her experiment that she can't
scrap it as she gears up for a gubernatorial run in 2002.

That's why Gov. Parris N. Glendening ought to show some leadership and step in.

Break the Cycle shouldn't be killed. The $2.9 million-a-year program,
instead, should be recast and limited to Baltimore City and Prince George's
County, the two Maryland jurisdictions with the worst drug problems.

In an interview with The Sun, Ms. Townsend rightly pointed out that before
Break the Cycle, the system wasn't working either.

"There was such a reluctance to change. For God's sake, try something," she
said.

There is nothing wrong with Break the Cycle's basic premise -- that
criminal behavior can be modified through effective drug treatment,
frequent monitoring and immediate, graduated sanctions.

The trouble is that none of those components has ever quite worked.

All this is documented in confidential performance audits conducted by the
probation agency, government management reports and consultants' findings.
The Sun obtained copies of all those documents, along with
inter-departmental memoranda and correspondence.

On paper, everything still looks promising: The most serious Break the
Cycle offenders are to be tested for drugs twice a week for two months. If
they are clean, testing will eventually be reduced to one sample a month
over eight months.

In reality, though, at least half of the program's Baltimore participants
fail to show up for drug tests or to keep their supervision appointments.
The reason? Wily probationers have figured out that Break the Cycle is a
shell game.

They know that despite all the tough talk about graduated sanctions, no
misbehaving participant has ended up in prison because of Break the Cycle
violations. The stiffest penalty is a series of verbal reprimands. Big deal.

Maryland's appalling shortage of addiction treatment slots has been another
crucial problem. Since there are too few slots, offenders often cannot be
given drug treatment, even when it is specifically mandated by judges as a
condition of continuing probation. Without treatment, Break the Cycle has
became little more than a frequent urinalysis program.

Even drug tests can be a sham.

Documents obtained by The Sun show that for eight consecutive weeks during
the summer of 1999 -- a full year after Break the Cycle began -- the state
kept collecting urine from probationers, but laboratory problems prevented
the samples from being analyzed.

The unprocessed samples were eventually destroyed.

Some judges are so upset with the program that they specifically write on
their sentencing forms: "Do not place in Break the Cycle."

"I don't think there is anyone who believes that successful drug probation
is possible without treatment," one judge explained.

"It's absurd to have someone in mere supervision when you know they will be
dirty time after time," the judge added.

As problems persisted, the whole probation machinery was commandeered to
make Break the Cycle work. After all, the experiment's godmother is the
politically ambitious daughter of the late Robert F. Kennedy. Her
enthusiasm has squelched legitimate criticism that could have curbed some
of the program's problems, illustrated by the case of suspected cop killer
Kofi Apea Orleans-Lindsay.

The consequences of the hands-off approach to Break the Cycle have been
disastrous for the beleaguered probation agency.

It is so swamped that many agents are routinely forced to handle 150 to 200
cases, despite national experts' warnings that such workloads are "absurd"
and jeopardize public safety.

In juggling law-enforcement and political priorities, the probation agency
has systematically relegated up to 45,000 non-Break the Cycle cases to
secondary importance. Never mind that some probationers have committed
murders, rapes and armed robberies.

Since March, agents with more than 50 problem Break the Cycle cases have
been allowed to overlook their regular nonviolent offenders. Agents are not
confirming whether these probationers are employed or meeting other
conditions of their sentences. Since those checks normally are done only
once every four months, it's possible that some probationers in high-crime
areas are going as long as eight months without any real contact with an agent.

The upshot is that run-of-the-mill probationers are likely to have tighter
supervision in the 17 Maryland counties that are not part of the experiment
than in Baltimore City and Baltimore, Howard, Montgomery, Prince George's
Washington and Charles counties, where Break the Cycle is in place.

This is playing with fire. Effective supervision is critical for all
probationers. Recidivism is high. One-third of Baltimore's offenders are on
conditional release when they are arrested for another crime.

Yet harried agents are constantly told that little matters besides Break
the Cycle. And those nearer the top of the Department of Public Safety and
Correction Services have been unwilling to stand up to the lieutenant
governor and her people.

"I have been reminded that Break the Cycle is at the highest priority level
of the division at this time," one supervisor declared, ordering agents to
limit their non-Break the Cycle field work to court appearances.

Even outsiders sense the fear.

Earlier this year, when a judge asked for clarification of a Break the
Cycle practice, a regional administrator demanded "the names of the agents"
who had talked.

This oppressive atmosphere has demoralized the agency.

In August, a large envelope was discovered in a trash basket at the
Guilford Avenue office. Inside were more than 20 notifications for agents
to appear in court. Someone had simply thrown them away.

Lieutenant Governor Townsend's big mistake was to insist on launching Break
the Cycle without adequate drug treatment, probation personnel and other
essential resources.

The probation agency's big mistake was not to put up a tougher fight
against such foolhardiness.

That doesn't mean the concept behind Break the Cycle is wrong. It means the
program has to be adequately funded and well run. It will take far more
than the $1.40 a day the state now spends to keep a convict on probation.
Above all, nothing will succeed unless steps are taken to make sure any
person in need of treatment gets it, particularly if ordered by courts.

Maryland decision-makers have not come to the grips with that truth. In the
end, though, Marylanders really have no choice, if we want to halt the drug
scourge that is destroying our urban areas.

Governor Glendening should scrap today's Break the Cycle, refocus it and
apply it only to Baltimore City and Prince George's County. They
desperately need a meaningful drug intervention strategy. But it cannot be
a false promise that only dashes the hopes of the addicts it purports to be
helping, and the public it is supposed to be protecting.