DRUG COURT OPENS -- AND OPENS UP NEW WORLDS

My mother looked rotten, it scared me. Her face was gray and sweating, and
the shadows under her eyes were like bruises. She was an addict."

- -- A scene from the movie and book, "Let No Man Write My Epitaph," by
Willard Francis Motley, 1958.

A truly fictionalized account of drug addiction?

No ... not then, and not now.

Americans spent $64 billion on illegal drugs last year: $36 billion on
cocaine; $10 billion on heroin; $5.4 billion on methamphetamine and more
than $11 billion on marijuana.

And in the year 2000 alone, 1.2 million nonviolent drug offenders were
incarcerated at a cost of $24 billion.

One would expect that such massive imprisonment would act as a deterrent.

It doesn't, hasn't and won't.

Let's call it what it is: A plague.

And Staten Island is in no way inoculated. Approximately 70 percent of all
crime committed in this borough is drug-related.

There may not be a cure for the plague, but we now have a means to break
the endless, wrenching cycle that has turned some neighborhoods here into
small villages haunted by the walking dead, made children orphans at worst,
and wards of the states at the very least, and cost New York taxpayers
billions yearly.

This cycle-breaker is the Staten Island Treatment Court (SITC) -- or drug
court, as those on the streets have already begun calling it.

Years in the planning and implementation, SITC has managed to transform
lock-'em-up-and-throw-away-the key judges and prosecutors into allies of
defense attorneys and drug-abuse experts.

"I was a skeptic," admitted Deputy Chief Administrative Judge Joseph J.
Traficanti Jr., director of court drug-treatment programs. "But my
perspective has changed over the years, because of treatment courts here in
the city, and the successes elsewhere around the country. This court is
truly something special because it makes a difference in people's lives."

Keynote Speaker

Traficanti was the keynote speaker at the official opening in a packed room
in Criminal Court on Targee Street in Stapleton. He was joined by Judge
William H. Miller, supervising judge, Kings and Richmond County Criminal
Court; Richmond County District Attorney William L. Murphy; presiding Judge
Alan J. Meyer; Ellen Burns, the project director; and Paul Battiste,
managing partner of Battiste, Aronowsky and Suchow, the law firm that
provides the borough's public defenders. They were all members of the
"team" responsible for SITC.

Staten Island joined three other boroughs -- Manhattan, Queens and the
Bronx -- as a member of the statewide drug-treatment court initiative with
a component within the criminal court. There are more than 1,000 such
courts nationwide.

Yesterday, as the court officially opened, it was as if an omnipotent hand
had switched on a beacon of hope.

What is SITC?

It is an alternative to incarceration for eligible felony drug offenders.
If selected for the program, participants meet regularly with a judge, are
subject to SITC rules in addition to those of a treatment program, and are
mandated to stay in the program from 12 to 18 months. Participants undergo
random drug testing, and the results of those tests, along with overall
progress reports, are submitted to the court, prosecutors and defense
attorneys. Participants move through a three-phase process, spending at
least four months in one phase before moving on to the next.

Participants must be a first-time, nonviolent felony offender, charged with
a felony drug charge, and be addicted. The district attorney screens drug
cases and identifies defendants who may be eligible.

'Vicious Cycle'

"This came to fruition without legislation, court challenges or lawsuits,"
continued Mr. Traficanti. "This is the most significant [drug fighting]
development in 50 years. For years I was doing the same thing over and over
again expecting a different result, and not getting it. Defendants would
appear before me over and over again. It was a vicious cycle. This breaks
that cycle for the Island community as it has in county after country, city
after city."

Incarcerating nonviolent drug offenders costs between $20,000 and $50,000
per person per year. The capital costs of building a prison cell can be as
much as $80,000. In contrast, a comprehensive drug court system costs less
than $2,500 annually for each offender.

"SITC, like all drug courts, are a cooperative effort, they bring a team
together," said District Attorney Murphy, who was a member of the core team
that has worked for the last three years to bring SITC to the Island.

Judge Meyer was also a skeptic who had a change of heart.

"It has worked and will work, not because of me or any one individual, but
because of all of us working together," he said. "The Rockefeller laws do
not work, this does."

In the final scenes of the motion picture "Let No Man Write My Epitaph,"
Burl Ives, who portrays the judge, is dying after being shot by a drug
dealer. He whispers to James Darren's character Nicky, "It's too late for
me. Don't let it be for you. Get free ... get free ... of us."

SITC is a key that opens a door to a new life for participants.

The team that worked for three years bringing this key of hope to our
borough has ensured that it won't be too late for the Nickys among us, that
there is a way for them, and all the men and women who find their lives
being smothered by the weight of drug addiction, to get free.