REPORT INDICATES DRUG COURTS WORK

As a child, it was a lot easier to stay out of trouble when big brother or
big sister was around to watching the proverbial cookie jar. You knew if
they told mom and dad, you would pay the price.

Someone watching was the key then, and it appears it's still the way to go.

When it comes to helping those who are addicted to narcotics, a just-
released Columbia University study shows that long-term drug treatment that
includes weekly urine tests and counseling is more successful than jail
when it comes to kicking the habit.

The testing and counseling are the backbone of drug courts which have grown
increasingly popular since they began in 1989. There are more than 600 drug
courts in the United States, and about 400 more are planned.

National Association of Drug Court Professionals executive director Karen
Freeman-Wilson says they "literally assist people in getting their lives back."

In Louisiana, drug courts have captured the attention of many judges and
lawmakers who are eager to keep nonviolent first-time offenders out of prisons.

Calcasieu Parish was ahead of the Louisiana curve - then dropped the ball.
It operated a drug court from Jan. 1, 1997 until Dec. 31, 1998, when it
lost federal funding.

Retired Judge A.J. Planchard was at the helm. When it formed he said it
would act more as an ''abatement'' program and would emphasize
rehabilitation rather than incarceration.

Funding came from a federal grant and money from the court, the Calcasieu
Parish Sheriff's Office and the District Attorney's office.

The drug court quickly became an assembly line. Hundreds of cases were
handled with many defendants accepting plea bargains to lesser offenses.

Privately some complained that the court was not working and that the
rehabilitation requirement of the grant was not being met.

Elsewhere in the state, at least eight other parishes have had Drug Courts
for at least two years and, recently, more than a a dozen new programs have
been launched.

For its study, the the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at
Columbia reviewed three dozen published and unpublished studies on drug courts.

Among its findings were the rates at which drug court participants were
later arrested on new charges varied.

In Baltimore, 48 percent of drug court graduates were arrested again within
12 months, compared with 64 percent of the drug defendants not assigned to
the special court.

In Escambia County, Fla., 40 percent of offenders are typically arrested
again within two years. For those who took part in drug court, the figure
dropped to 12 percent.

Orleans Parish, which was not among the communities studied, reports a
similar rate of recidivism among the more than 1,200 people who went gone
through its drug court.

President Bush in May endorsed drug courts as part of his anti-drug
strategy, but there is resistance to the idea as "social work" rather than
criminal justice, and the past decade brought increased mandatory minimums
for drug crimes.

"People often have that myth that drug courts are soft on crime, but so
many offenders say, 'I can do time standing on my head,'" said
Freeman-Wilson, who formerly served as Indiana's attorney general. "Drug
testing on a weekly basis is harder than any jail sentence they've ever done."

Like we said, it's easier to stay straight when Big Brother is watching