THE VERDICT ON DRUG COURT

Sound Investment: Offenders Get Chance For Monitored Treatment; Community
Benefits From Recovery

DRUG COURTS have proven their worth when appropriate treatment and
supervision are available.

They can save money on jails and police, welfare and health. They can lower
crime rates and contribute to a stronger social fabric and safer
communities. They can also salvage lives.

Critics will point to the failures in relapses, rearrests and convictions
of people who go through drug court. Yet time and again, studies have shown
that these rates of failure are significantly higher for those who do not
go through drug court or similar post-arrest monitored treatment. That
represents obvious benefit for the community, as well as for those
offenders who demonstrate the will to succeed in staying clean.

A study of Baltimore's 7-year-old drug court system found that only 11
percent of its "graduates" since 1995 were convicted of a subsequent crime.
The rearrest rate was one-third that of those who rejected the drug court
option, which offers treatment in lieu of jail to selected, nonviolent drug
offenders.

Drug courts combine the threat of incarceration with the promise of
therapeutic help. They don't legalize drugs, but they offer treatment (in a
variety of forms) to those who honestly seek it.

As The Sun's Dan Rodricks pointed out in a recent article, many in the city
program have been serious addicts for years. When they can graduate, as
some 700 offenders have, there is a genuine feeling of celebration.

The system isn't perfect, and it's limited to about 850 slots. With an
estimated 60,000 drug addicts in the city, most of whom will eventually be
involved in crime, drug courts are not going to solve the entire problem.

They depend on adequate funding and staffing to accept those who are
seeking a second chance. The Baltimore drug court closed to new applicants
for seven months last year because of a funding shortfall.

Drug addiction costs the nation $110 billion yearly. Investing in monitored
treatment pays off. Drug courts offer both the hope of improving lives and
of cutting the enormous cost of drug abuse.