DRUG OFFENDERS LEFT WAITING FOR HELP

The County Is Working To Speed Up The Process That Gets Offenders
Timely Drug Assessments

LARGO - Pinellas County's drug court is designed to keep offenders out
of prison so they can get help to fight their addiction.

Officials say the program works well once participants get treatment.
But some are stuck in jail for up to eight weeks, waiting for
assessments to determine what kind of drug treatment they need,
Pinellas-Pasco Public Defender Bob Dillinger said Monday.

"Some people are spending way too much time in jail," Dillinger said.
"The sooner people get an assessment, the sooner they can get out of
jail."

The chief of Operation PAR, a treatment agency that does the
assessments for the court, disagrees that meaningful delays exist. If
defendants are jailed longer than they should be, said Operation PAR
chief executive officer Nancy Hamilton, it isn't her program's fault.

Hamilton said all defendants get an assessment before their first
court appearance, which lawyers say occurs after about eight weeks.
Assessments are done in four weeks on average, she said, long before
that first date in court.

Doing assessments faster, Hamilton said, would be useless because
defendants must wait for a court date to get out of jail anyway.

"Right now, we do exactly what the system tells us to do," Hamilton
said. "If there's a problem getting somebody in, all they have to do
is call me."

Dillinger said hearings to resolve cases could be scheduled much
sooner than the normal eight weeks if only assessments were being done
faster.

By late Monday, Dillinger said Hamilton was organizing a meeting with
his office, prosecutors and drug court personnel to come up with a
plan to get assessments done more quickly.

Usually, defendants in drug court must resolve the criminal case
against them before entering treatment, either through a plea, by
admitting a probation violation or by being accepted into a diversion
program.

But Dillinger said defendants can't do any of those things before
getting their assessment.

Right now, assessments are often done just a few days before the first
court hearing for a drug court defendant, said Marc Feig, an attorney
in Dillinger's office who works in drug court. PAR cannot accommodate
lawyers who try to get assessments done more quickly, he said.

Those first hearings, Feig said, come eight weeks, sometimes longer,
after defendants are jailed.

"I don't think there are any ill motives," Feig said. "It's a manpower
thing."

Sheriff Everett Rice said it costs just more than $79 per day to house
a jail inmate.

"People shouldn't have to wait that long to get into a drug treatment
program," he said.

Operation PAR has four assessors, though Feig said just one works at
the jail. The position costs the drug treatment agency about $30,000
annually.

The problem is worsened because more defendants than ever are being
charged on probation violations, a offshoot of the killing of Carlie
Brucia earlier this year in Sarasota, said Assistant Public Defender
Cynthia Newton.

Brucia was a 11-year-old who police say was killed by a man with a
long criminal record while on probation at the time of the girl's death.

Drug court defendants who violate their probation often need a new
assessment if the violation is drug or alcohol related.

Drug court is an option only for nonviolent drug offenders not charged
with drug trafficking. Eligible offenses include possession of
marijuana or cocaine and illegal prescriptions, among others.

"These are nonviolent offenders who are eventually going to be in
treatment," Newton said. "Why do they need to spend two months in jail?"

Pinellas-Pasco Circuit Judge Lauren Laughlin, who presides over drug
court, said some delays are unavoidable.

"How long does it take a normal case to get to a plea?" said Laughlin,
who handles a case load of nearly 2,000 defendants. "It takes a while.
We're doing things as quickly as the process permits. I'm just
pedaling as fast as I can."

To Hamilton, complaints about jailed inmates detract from what is an
overwhelmingly successful program.

"The recidivism rates are just phenomenal," she said. "This is working
for people."

For those who successfully completed drug court in 2002, the
recidivism rate (or the percentage of people who broke the law again)
in the first year after they graduated was 11.4 percent. The national
average stands at about 16.4 percent.

By contrast, about 32 percent of the 797 defendants who opted out of
drug court and took their cases to the regular criminal divisions of
the courthouse since January 2001 have been re-arrested.

"A lot of people like to be tough on crime," Laughlin said. "I think
we all feel that way. But what they have to understand is you can't
keep people with substance abuse problems in jail forever. It's
probably a better use of dollars to cure them than just punish them."

Newton said the drug court works well, and she hopes a similar court
may one day open in Pasco County.

"I don't want to sound negative about it," she said. "It's a positive
program. But this one wrinkle should be worked out."
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OUT OF TROUBLE

Successful participants in Pinellas County's drug court, which offers
drug treatment to some nonviolent offenders, tend to stay out of
trouble better than those who go through standard criminal court.
After one year:

11.4 percent of those who completed drug court in 2002 were
arrested.

32 percent of defendants who opted not to participate in drug court
since January 2001 were arrested.

Source: Pinellas County drug court