DRUG TREATMENT COURT'S SUCCESS RATE SHOWS IT IS WISE USE
OF TAX MONEY

Do the math. It costs an average of $24,000 a year to keep a drug offender
in jail for a year.

It costs $3,500 to put the same person through Drug Treatment Court for a year.

It doesn't take a Harvard economist to point out that Drug Treatment Court
makes more sense when applicable.

Buncombe County's drug court was established in 2000, and since then has
seen 34 people graduate from its program.

Of those, five have since been arrested again, giving the program a
recidivism rate of 15 percent.

That sounds like a lot, but it's much lower than the recidivism rate for
the general inmate population in North Carolina, which ranges two to three
times higher over a four-year period.

The court works with nonviolent drug offenders, holding them accountable
for their actions and working to put them back on a path that benefits both
them and society.

The bottom line is that it doesn't make any sense, if a person is not a
threat to others, to lock that person away at a price that would pay for a
nice college tuition when that person could be rehabilitated and back on a
job for a fraction of the cost.

Or so you would think. And yet, the Drug Treatment Court is running out of
funds. Without a fiscal booster shot, it will run out completely by next
June. The Buncombe court is looking for help from the City of Asheville.

Vice Mayor Carl Mumpower, who has a keen interest in stemming the drug
problem here, said, "It takes a tremendous amount of support and incentives
to get an average person to beat hard drugs. The drug court has incentives
going for them."

The annual cost for the drug court is $145,000, with most of that going
toward treatment programs.

Drug courts are a relatively new trend; there are 13 in North Carolina and
approximately 1,000 scattered around the nation.

They appear to be a successful trend, helping keep prison beds free for
dangerous, deserving criminals while providing a very American thing, a
second chance in life for those willing to work for it.

While efforts are being made on the local level to preserve the court, the
major funding hurdles appear to be on up the budgetary pipeline. An
application for a federal grant from a division of the Department of
Justice was denied.

Kyle Mood, Drug Court Treatment coordinator, said, "We could have done a
lot of good with that money. If we're this effective with $145,000, imagine
what good we could have done with more."

Robert Ritch, who was addicted to painkillers and is now a graduate of the
drug court, put a more personal face on the matter: "The program serves a
need that the system does not. No one can get straight in prison."

If this program withers on the vine for lack of funding it would be a
classic case of being penny-wise, pound-foolish with our tax dollars.

Worse, it would mean lives that could be rescued lying in ruin instead.

How it works:

Participants in drug court, in order to graduate, are required to:

Show up for drug court, every other Friday.

Do community service.

Participate in frequent drug testing.

Attend Narcotics/Alcoholics Anonymous meetings.

Adhere to strict curfews.

Enroll in GED classes or get a job.

Get sober housing (no drug-using roommates).

Pay off all legal obligations.

SOURCE: The North Carolina Court System