TREATMENT PROGRAMS

JEFFERSON CITY - As a former heroin addict who was in and out of prison
five times in a 20-year span, Barbara Baker knows all too well about
recidivism.

Baker, 51, of St. Louis, came to the state Capitol last week to try to
persuade lawmakers to change sentencing laws that she says put too many
nonviolent offenders behind bars without getting them the drug treatment
they need.

She supports a bill that encourages alternatives to putting first-time,
nonviolent offenders in prison. The idea is to reach and help people like
Baker the first time they get caught so they don't keep returning to prison.

In Baker's case, she said that it took her years to recognize the link
between her heroin addiction and her criminal record. She shoplifted
expensive women's clothes to support her habit and to avoid withdrawal
symptoms. Prison was not a deterrent.

Baker finally got treatment for her addiction and now works for Center for
Women in Transition, an organization that helps women coming out of prison.

"If I had had treatment in that 15 1/2 years that I was locked up, I would
have known that boredom and that 'pity party' was part of my disease," she
said.

Some prosecutors, like St. Louis Circuit Attorney Jennifer Joyce, are
opposing elements of the bill, which is sponsored by Sen. Harold Caskey,
D-Butler. They fear it may be too lenient.

Greene County Prosecuting Attorney Darrell Moore said the state should
concentrate its efforts on helping preschool-age children. He says there
will always be a group of nonviolent offenders who don't want to change.
"What do you do with these people? You can't just let them out on the
street and let them commit 20 or 30 more burglaries," he said.

Caskey has pushed sentencing reform for years and has prepared a report on
it: "Arresting the Overflow, Alternatives to Prison Overcrowding and
Expansion in Missouri and the Need for Guided Judicial Discretion."

Missouri can no longer afford "free-wheeling prison incarceration for our
criminals regardless of their crimes," he wrote.

"We are currently imprisoning large numbers of offenders who pose no
violent threat to society and who too often find their first brush with the
law resulting in prison sentences," he wrote.

Drug-related, nonviolent crimes accounted for 4,978 (about 57 percent) of
all new admissions to state prisons in 2001, his report said. The state's
prison population has doubled in the last 10 years, to about 30,000 inmates.

New prisons have sprouted in the Missouri towns of Bonne Terre, Bowling
Green, Cameron, Charleston, Licking and Vandalia - all since 1997.

Sentencing reform could be more attractive this year because of the state's
money troubles. Caskey's bill would save the state up to $9 million in the
coming fiscal year and twice that much in following years.

It would require judges to consider the state sentencing guidelines. Some
judges, especially in southern Missouri, have been sentencing offenders to
terms longer than the guidelines recommend.

And if judges deviate from the guidelines, they would have to justify their
decision in writing. If a judge did not submit such a report, the Board of
Probation and Parole would have the authority to shorten the sentence.

Prosecutors don't like the idea and have argued that sentencing guidelines
are seriously flawed.

Other parts of the bill deal with 120-day sentences. Some first-time
offenders get a "shock" prison sentence but end up serving longer - until a
judge orders their release.

Caskey's measure would allow people convicted of a Class C or D felony who
have served 120 days in prison to ask a judge to allow them to serve the
rest of their sentence on probation, parole or another "alternative" sentence.

The bill says courts must follow the recommendation of the Department of
Corrections unless a judge decides "that such a placement may be an abuse
of discretion."

Moore and others oppose the idea because they fear so many offenders would
apply that it would create "an administrative nightmare."

State law now requires the Corrections Department to have substance abuse
treatment programs for "chronic nonviolent offenders." Department officials
say they offer some alcohol abuse treatment; others say it's inadequate.

Caskey's bill would mandate that the department offer institutional drug or
alcohol treatment varying from 12 to 24 months. Prosecutors and some judges
like that provision.

Locking up a drunk for five years on a drunken driving charge won't help
the drunk stay sober when he gets out of jail, said Supreme Court Judge
Mike Wolff.

"You get somebody who is probably a more adept criminal and angry besides,"
he said. "We need to fix people more in the community."

Caskey's bill is in line for debate on the Senate floor.

The bill is SB5.