IF THE PROGRAM WORKS, FUND IT

If local district attorneys have their way, and if lobbying works and
the State Legislature provides money through the New York State Office
of Court Administration, county drug courts may be able to do their
jobs more efficiently and perhaps even expand some of the good things
they're doing.

So says Saratoga District Attorney Jim Murphy, president of the group
of district attorneys from New York's 62 counties. Franklin County DA
Derek Champagne is an officer in the organization.

Murphy presided over the association's annual meeting last week in New
York City, where this year's issues and goals were clarified. At the
top of that list is the need to expand drug-treatment courts and get
state funding for prosecutors who work in those courts.

Clinton, Franklin and Essex counties are successfully conducting
misdemeanor drug courts as we write, where non-violent defendants
addicted to drugs, alcohol and illegal substances have been
successfully diverted from incarceration into treatment centers upon
completion of the alternative criminal proceedings. Programs like
these have contributed to the closure of four of New York state's
largest prisons.

The rub is that drug courts get no money from the state and little
from the federal government.

Drug courts operate in numerous counties, including the three in the
North Country, even though they're not reimbursed by the state. Murphy
and the DA's group hope to change that.

The key will be to push for a legislative initiative. It's tough to
argue against a plan that allows first-time misdemeanor offenders an
alternative to state prison time. We look at it as an investment. And
here's why.

Oftentimes, the offender has a job, a family and financial
obligations. If he or she goes to jail, who's going to pick up the
slack? Public assistance might be required to assist a spouse and/or
children whose exclusive wants and needs might be provided by the
breadwinner who goes to jail. And how many employers are going to hold
a job for an employee who goes to jail for a criminal offense? Not
many, we'd bet.

And drug courts are accountable by tracking statistics of their
successes or failures.

Take Murphy's jurisdiction, for example. In his county, state
statistics show that not one graduate of the drug court in Saratoga
has relapsed. And recidivism rates are extremely low, he says. And of
the more than 245 people who have gone through his program, 49 have
graduated, 11 of them from Road to Recovery court.

These were people who were bound for prison. Those accepted six months
of residential rehabilitation and then 12 to 18 months of
drug-treatment court with weekly attendance mandatory and random urine
testing.

It's high time the state fund these judicial alternatives because,
simply, it's the right thing to do.