DRUG COURT JUSTICE

Drug addiction, alcohol abuse and mental health problems are blamed
for a quarter of San Francisco's crime. For the most part, the city
leans on an arrest-and-release spin cycle that perpetuates the problem.

After 18 months of work, a wide coalition of judges, law enforcement
officials and social service leaders are proposing a break from the
usual. Take suspects arrested for misdemeanors and nonviolent felonies
- - such as shoplifting, car burglaries or small-time drug peddling - to
a one-stop court. There, a court commissioner will weigh the case to
see if the arrestee is a candidate for detox, supervised housing,
health care and even tattoo removal to get a job. If a candidate balks
or breaks a promise to seek help, then the case goes back into the
conventional court system. The new process is designed to take days,
not weeks, as it does now.

The Community Justice Center is modeled after successful programs in
New York and Philadelphia. Here, it will be tried out in the
high-crime Tenderloin and South of Market area where it aims to handle
eight cases per day. If it succeeds on this gritty turf, it might be
expanded.

But it won't happen without approval from the Board of Supervisors,
whose members are balking at an initial $500,000 for facilities above
existing Civic Center courtrooms. Strange, isn't it, that this board,
so quick to bless progressive causes and spend big on social services,
can't support this promising shakeup of the old order?

Politics are partly to blame because Mayor Gavin Newsom is behind the
cause, and his foes on the board can't bring themselves to support
him. A board committee blocked the money last week, though the full
board may reconsider the issue Tuesday.

The program's critics also worry that it will drain time and personnel
from present duties. But supporters have lined up federal and private
money for much of the future costs. Also, any success from this
program should cut court, jail and probation budgets. Memo to the
supes: Spend now, save later.

San Francisco takes pride in its image as a groundbreaker on gay
rights, the environment and universal health care, to name a few. This
program offers another way to add to that praiseworthy image by ending
the dead-end criminal cycle in a serious and tough-minded way. The
board should back the Justice Center.