MANAGED PLAN BEST TO PUNISH ADDICTS

Georgia has an important opportunity to move beyond the no-win debate over
whether drug offenders should be punished or treated for their addictions.
Under guidelines being considered by the Governor's Certainty in Sentencing
Commission, offenders convicted of nonviolent crimes, including drug
possession, will be sentenced to something called "managed punishment."

The change would be part of a massive effort to bring truth and fairness to
prison sentences as well as predictability to Georgia's burgeoning prison
population.

Under the commission's recommendation, those convicted of low-level crimes
would be sentenced to something other than the most expensive prison bed.
These sentences will not be a "soft-on-crime" approach or even necessarily
therapeutic in nature. "Managed punishment" -- a phrase coined by Adam
Gelb, the sentencing commission's executive director -- would include drug
treatment if the offender was involved with drugs.

At its core, managed punishment is structured around immediate sanctions
for bad behavior, with rewards for good behavior. In other words, the old
carrot and stick. For drug offenders, it will link punishment to treatment:
Fail a drug test or miss a treatment appointment, suffer the consequences.

"Drug-involved offenders, like the rest of us but probably more so, respond
more powerfully to immediate sanctions than to deferred ones, and more
powerfully to virtually certain punishments than to punishments with low
probability -- even if that low-probability threat is severe," one of the
country's leading experts on criminal behavior, Mark A.R. Kleiman, told the
sentencing commission.

Under the current system, a judge would sentence a criminal to probation
and require him to meet certain conditions to remain free. If a probationer
violates the rules -- misses a meeting with his probation officer or fails
a drug test, for example -- he is usually only admonished. The misbehavior
and subsequent reprimands might go on for months until the probation
officer seeks his only real recourse. That involves working through the
legal bureaucracy to set up a court date, which may or may not result in a
probation revocation. Offenders know how to play that system to their
advantage.

Under the proposed system, a judge in sentencing a criminal to probation
would empower the probation officer to deliver immediate consequences for
misbehavior.

Probation officers would have the authority to send offenders up and down
the various levels of custody -- from supervised probation to day reporting
centers to diversion centers or to one of the growing number of state
detention centers, essentially small prisons.

Judges will be asked to adopt the sentencing guidelines through the Council
of Superior Court Judges. Their approval is not automatic, however, because
the new system will give probation officers authority that judges now exercise.

On the other hand, judges often complain about their workload, and
probation revocations account on average for 27 percent of their criminal
cases. Sheriffs should also welcome the change, because it would mean less
crowding in county jails from probation violators awaiting a hearing.

According to legal experts, the state Legislature will need to confirm the
new power being granted to probation officers. In addition, the Legislature
will need to fund a $4 million to $5 million twice-weekly drug testing program.

"This is an investment that would pay for itself dozens of times over in
reduced drug use and crime," says commission director Gelb.

Currently, probationers are tested for drugs just once a year on average.
Addicts know that detectable levels of most drugs flush out of their system
within 48 to 72 hours, which means it's a waste of money to test an addict
any less often than twice a week.

When Maryland began twice-weekly drug testing, two-thirds of probationers
initially failed or skipped the test. Within two months, that failure rate
was cut in half, confirming that the threat of discovery can aid an addict
in breaking his habit.

For comparison purposes, testing an offender twice a week for a year would
cost $312. A year in prison cost taxpayers $20,000.

But under the current system, half of all male prisoners identified with a
drug problem return to prison within five years.

By reserving expensive prison space for violent criminals and by initiating
a managed punishment approach to less serious offenders, Georgia stands a
good chance of reducing crime without breaking the bank. Experience with
drug testing -- in Maryland and numerous drug courts -- suggests drug
offenders would stand a very good chance of breaking the cycle.