'TREATMENT COURT' STRESSES REHAB OVER JAIL IN LESSER DRUG CASES

For nine years, Verrico Taylor has lived in a whirlwind of drug use,
spending day in, day out smoking marijuana and crack.

Now, Taylor, 23, is having to confront his addiction head on and make
life-changing decisions just to stay out of jail. It's sort of a last
chance.

If he slips and uses, talks out of turn, commits new offenses or
refuses to immediately obey orders such as submitting to a random drug
test, he can be rejailed.

It's a new program - but a familiar concept - now in its infancy in
Metro's General Sessions Court.

Judge Casey Moreland's program, which he calls a ''treatment court,''
emphasizes rehabilitation, rather than incarceration, for those
convicted of misdemeanor drug charges in General Sessions Court.

It's modeled after drug courts that have been hailed as successful
elsewhere, and in Nashville, where a similar program has been
available for people facing felony drug offenses in Criminal Court.
That program was started in 1997 by Judge Seth Norman.

Moreland said that he expects at least 25-30 people to take
part.

Taylor is one of the first five participants who have chosen to
receive daily training on skills such as anger management and job
readiness and to submit to monitoring over incarceration.

He was in Moreland's court because he violated the terms of his
probation after a previous conviction for drug possession.

Yesterday the five reported to Moreland for the first time since they
were ordered to attend the drug court.

''I get to get my GED for one and be free at the same time,'' he said
in an interview outside of court. ''I still get to work and better
myself. I don't have to just get out of jail, and then start all over.''

Moreland said the program runs on existing funds. Court officers,
probation officers, prosecutors, public defenders and others have
taken it on as added duty, he said.

''Right around the corner,'' though, he will have to ask Metro for
extra money to keep the program afloat.

Moreland's drug court differs from the felony court run by Norman in
that offenders in Moreland's court can live in their own homes rather
than staying in a residential treatment facility.

They must report four times a week to the Metro Day Reporting Center,
802 Second Ave. S., and go through daily programs.

''I think the whole mindset of alternate sentencing is a reaction to
overcrowding, and the attitudes of 'let's build more jails, build more
jails, build more jails,' which we went through in the 70s and 80s,''
Moreland said. ''We were putting people in jail, instead of defeating
the problem.''