CALIFORNIA LACKS RESOURCES FOR LAW ON DRUG OFFENDERS, OFFICIALS SAY

LONG BEACH, Calif. — Sgt. Walt Turley has been on the Long Beach police
force for 26 years, long enough to know that many of the drug addicts he
arrests wind up back on the streets, and long enough to know that prison
sentences alone will never solve the nation's drug problem.

But Sergeant Turley is worried that Proposition 36, a new law that
sentences drug offenders to treatment rather than prison, is also in danger
of failing when it goes into effect on July 1.

"There isn't enough money for good treatment, and there isn't enough
coercion for judges to keep the hammer over addicts without the threat of
jail," Sergeant Turley said.

It is a concern shared by the police, judges, prosecutors, probation
officers and officials of drug treatment agencies in Long Beach and around
California as the state rushes to find ways to carry out the new law, the
most sweeping change in its criminal justice system in decades and one that
was approved overwhelmingly in November.

It is not that these authorities disagree with the goal of Proposition 36,
which is to provide drug treatment instead of prison for first- and
second-time offenders who are not charged with other crimes.
Overwhelmingly, they agree, treatment can work. But they worry that the law
was hastily written, without sufficient money or authority for treatment
programs, and they see a cascading number of unintended consequences. Will
drug addicts refuse to plead guilty, for example, and take their chances on
a trial, because the worst that can happen to them is to be sentenced to
treatment? That could cause havoc in the state's courts, where more than 95
percent of drug offenders plead guilty, saving the courts significant time
and money.

Moreover, who will make sure the addicts go from the courtrooms to the new
treatment centers, and how will they be tested to make sure they are drug
free, since there is no money in the new law to address either of these
problems?

"Frankly, I think this could work, if it were better funded," said Lael
Rubin, special assistant to the Los Angeles County District Attorney and a
member of a task force appointed by the Los Angeles Board of Supervisors to
find ways to carry out the new law. "We believe in drug treatment, we want
it to work," Ms. Rubin said. "But this is our dilemma. We're afraid if this
fails, people will want to go back to the lock-them-up days."

Even a number of treatment centers, for whom the new law could prove a
bonanza, are skeptical. "The language of Proposition 36 did not define the
assessment criteria to determine what kind of treatment an addict needs, or
where they will be placed, which are critical issues," said Elizabeth
Stanley Salazar, regional director of Phoenix House, a national nonprofit
drug treatment agency. "The most significant indicator of success, we know
from years of experience, is time in treatment, but the backers of
Proposition 36 seem to believe that most people only need outpatient
services, or literacy training, when we think they may be hard-core addicts
who need long-term residential care, which is much more expensive."

Already, Ms. Rubin and other Los Angeles officials have been to Sacramento
to lobby the Legislature for more money to carry out the new law.
Unfortunately, the Legislature is focused on only one thing — California's
power crisis.

California's prison population exploded to 161,291 at the end of 2000 from
roughly 30,000 in 1980, with one-third of those inmates serving time for a
drug-related crime, more per capita than in any other state. In the
mid-1990's, as California began to spend more on its prisons than on its
state college and university system, voters began to question
appropriations for prison construction.

Proposition 36 was financed by three businessmen: George Soros, the New
York investment billionaire; Peter Lewis, chief executive officer of
Progressive Insurance in Cleveland; and John Sperling, the founder and
chief executive officer of the University of Phoenix, a network of private
educational institutions. Their main argument was that the nation's drug
war had failed. And the initiative in California came at a time when voters
and politicians in other states, too, were expressing disenchantment with
the war on drugs. Last month, Gov. George E. Pataki of New York proposed
softening the harsh Rockefeller-era drug laws, allowing shorter prison
terms for nonviolent drug offenses and giving judges the discretion to
offer treatment instead of incarceration.

Voters in California may also have been influenced by the success of the
state's specialized drug courts. Los Angeles County alone has 12 drug
courts, in which drug addicts who waive their rights and agree to be
sentenced by the courts receive treatment instead of prison time, unless
they repeatedly fail or drop out.

Michael Tynan, the supervising judge of drug courts for Los Angeles County,
said the addicts he supervises had a success rate of 75 percent. But it is
not an easy program. Most of the defendants who agree to enter the program,
Judge Tynan said, are hard-core addicts and have already been in prison. At
first he puts them in intensive treatment for 12 to 15 hours a day in the
Los Angeles jail. After that, they are put on probation for up to five
years, with drug tests four times a week, and are required to stay in
treatment centers. He can send them back to jail if they fail a test.

"Drug court judges who have experience dealing with addicts believe you
need sanctions, the hammer to put these folks back in jail," Judge Tynan
said. "Their major problem is not criminality, but drug addiction."

That is why, Judge Tynan said, he is skeptical about how well Proposition
36 will work. After a defendant is sentenced to treatment, a judge will
have no more authority over the person. "The lack of a hammer is a real
problem," he said.

The supporters of Proposition 36 provided $120 million a year for treatment
statewide, estimating that there would be 36,000 addicts who would be
eligible. Addicts arrested on other charges — for burglary, robbery, drug
sales or possession of a gun — would not be eligible.

But Maria Luna, a former drug court judge who is now chairman of the Los
Angeles County task force to carry out Proposition 36, estimates that Los
Angeles alone will have 24,000 defendants eligible for treatment. A year of
outpatient services for a drug addict comes to $4,000, Judge Luna said, or
$96 million alone for the 24,000 new offenders in Los Angeles. Many
offenders need more costly inpatient treatment.

In addition, Proposition 36 prohibits using the new money for drug testing,
which at $8 a test, four times a week, could cost Los Angeles another $10
million a year.

The new law also does not provide money for additional probation officers,
a serious flaw, since probation officers in Los Angeles often have case
loads of 1,000 offenders.

There are also questions about where the new treatment services will come
from. It can take two years to overcome neighborhood opposition to a new
drug treatment center, said Ms. Salazar of Phoenix House.

Sergeant Turley in Long Beach worries about the practical effect of the new
law on police officers and citizens. "From the point of view of a street
cop," he said, "humping and grinding in his black and white, what happens
when he makes a drug arrest, then has to do two hours of paperwork, then
has to go to court, only to see the knucklehead right back out of the
street because he skipped out on his treatment?"