VOLUSIA CO. DRUG COURTS WINNING ABUSE BATTLES

One of the best-kept secrets in the judicial system for nearly a
decade is the success of drug courts in the fight against addiction
and the havoc it wreaks on our families and communities. The
overwhelming majority, perhaps more than 80 percent, of cases passing
through our juvenile, criminal and family courts have the abuse of
drugs and alcohol at their core.

The traditional resolution of these cases has been to incarcerate the
criminal and remove the child from the family -- ending in
unquestionably devastating results. These severe remedies have a
ripple effect throughout the community, felt by everyone in the form
of taxes and societal anxiety.

If this were medicine, we would say that treatment and its side
effects are causing more problems systemically than the disease.
Experience has clearly demonstrated that Draconian measures are not
necessarily the answer to the simple question of how we should respond
to the addicted in our courts.

Our prisons are overflowing, figuratively, if not literally. There are
more than 2 million people in prisons across this country and more
than 84,000 in Florida. Incarceration is terribly expensive.

Substance treatment in prisons is even more costly. Traditional in-
prison substance treatment produces a successful outcome less than 25
percent of the time if recidivism, the rate at which prisoners return
to prison, is the measurement tool.

Terminating the parental rights of addicts is expensive and often
counter-productive. In our rush to do the right thing for children, we
often make them miserable.

Drug courts have discovered a method for obtaining drastically
different results. The felony drug court in Volusia County has been in
existence for almost nine years, and 75 percent of its graduates have
not been charged with a felony since completing treatment. That figure
alone is remarkable! But, it is staggering to realize that drug court
has produced this result at a much more reasonable cost -- less than
one-seventh of the cost of incarceration.

A judge sentencing a felon may now consider two clear options --
incarcerate an addict at a huge expense and anticipate a 66 percent
chance that the person will be back in prison within three years of
release or sentence an addict to drug court at one-seventh of the cost
and anticipate a 75 percent chance that the person will never return
to a felony court, much less a prison, at all.

Drug court is a hybrid of traditional treatment coupled with the
coercive ability of the courts. The typical course of treatment is one
year, and treatment is provided through a community partnership with
interested treatment providers. Under the court's supervision,
outpatient or residential treatment is provided as deemed appropriate
by treatment teams.

Sanctions and rewards are integral to drug courts and are utilized
generously. Frequent and random urinalysis and other detection methods
are an important part of the treatment regimen as well.

In Volusia County we are fortunate to have a government that
recognizes not only the benefits of treatment to its citizens, but
also the accompanying savings drug courts deliver to taxpayers. The
Volusia County Council has steadfastly supported and encouraged the
establishment and growth of our drug courts. We now operate an adult
drug court, a dependency drug court and a juvenile drug court with
great success. We are also in the process of doubling the capacity of
our adult drug court as early as this fall.

Compare, if you will, the likely social outcomes of traditional and
drug court remedies. The prison remedy removes the offender
temporarily and returns him with dismal prospects for employment, a
persistent addiction and family difficulties that grew exponentially
while he (or she) was incarcerated. The family very often depends on
public assistance in the offender's absence and deteriorates
immeasurably. When he comes home the defendant knows -- to a
mathematical probability -- that he is going to return to prison.

On the other hand, the drug court remedy retains the offender in the
community, enforces gainful employment and requires the support of the
family while the defendant is engaged in treatment. The family remains
intact, and the defendant learns to live appropriately with an
addiction. The offender knows he can go to prison for his failure in
drug court, but he also knows he's probably not going back to prison
if he successfully graduates.

Drug courts are not just more effective -- they are less expensive. A
classic no-brainer.

We should keep in mind, though, that drug courts don't just save
dollars. Much more importantly, drug courts save lives, families and
souls.