LOCAL OFFICIALS WORRY PROP 36 WOULD FLOOD PROBATION SYSTEM

Predicting Proposition 36 would flush away drug-testing and flood the
probation system with new clients, Ventura County criminal justice leaders
say they're alarmed the initiative might be galvanizing voters' frustration
with the status quo.

The proposition would send drug possession offenders into probation and
treatment instead of jail or prison. It provides $120 million for treatment
programs and has been pitched as a way to address the core problems of drug
abuse and save taxpayers the expense of incarcerating abusers.

An August poll showed that 55 percent of the respondents favor the
initiative -- to the concern of Cal Remington, Ventura County's chief
probation officer. Last year, the Ventura County Sheriff's Department
levied 3,139 charges on drug offenses. Though the proposition provides
exceptions based on criminal past and the specifics of the offense,
Remington believes too many of the offenders would be diverted to probation.

"My fear is that there are going to be hundreds and hundreds of new people
coming into the system. It could be thousands," Remington said. "Right now,
I don't know how we get additional resources."

One impact would be drug testing. Because the proposition does not provide
any new testing funds, Remington said the increase in clients would swamp
the budget. There wouldn't be enough money to test everyone.

"The only way to tell how they're doing would be to ask them," said
Superior Court Judge Barry Klopfer, who heads the county's drug court. "The
last thing a person wants to do is be truthful about their use."

But the initiative gives more offenders a chance, said Hal Chiprin, a
51-year-old Ventura resident who served 20 months in prison after being
arrested on a methamphetamine charge on the Fourth of July several years ago.

Campaigning for the initiative as part of a coalition of friends and family
members of incarcerated drug offenders, Chiprin said he knows abusers who
just keep rotating in and out of prison. "This would put someone into
position where they would get the treatment they need," he said. "What we
have now is definitely not working."

Others in Ventura County who support the proposition say it's time to
reform the costly and, in their minds, ineffective battle against drugs.
They say addiction has to be perceived as a disease, not a crime.

"If you put them into prison, are they going to change?" said Barbara
Dobrin, a drug and alcohol counselor in Newbury Park, answering her own
query. "They're going to get worse."

Ask for opinions at an outlet mall and people, only vaguely familiar with
Proposition 36, talked about the need to give judges discretion in handing
down sentences but also talked about innovative solutions that go beyond
simply getting tough on crime.

"I go for decriminalization of nonviolent crimes," said David Morton, a
Westlake Village electrical engineer. "Three strikes isn't working."
Klopfer noted that the system already provides probation diversions for
many offenders. In addition to a program for first-time offenders, the
county has a drug court program for people with longer records. It has sent
about 500 people into drug treatment over five years.

About half the people complete the program and about 30 percent of the
graduates have been arrested for subsequent crime. Comparatively, about 84
percent of the people who started but didn't complete the court-imposed
program have been re-arrested.

Klopfer, who worries that Proposition 36 could mean the end of drug court,
said the program works in part because the judge, attorneys and probation
officers have a say in determining who is ready for treatment and who
isn't. The proposition would remove much of that discretion. If a person
can't stay clean in any of the available treatment programs, the
proposition allows for a hearing to decide whether probation should be
revoked. As hammers go, observers said, it's not as big as current law,
which provides for a more streamlined path to punishment.

"The stick-and-carrot approach, crude though it may be, works," Remington
said, suggesting the proposition doesn't "provide enough to hold
(offenders') feet to the fire."

The measure also has drawn opposition from Ventura County Sheriff Bob
Brooks and Deputy District Attorney Richard Holmes who worry that it will
be perceived as a get-out-of-jail free card.

"It's a simplistic solution and we're a country famous for simplistic
solutions," Holmes said. Leaders of private drug and alcohol treatment
programs in Ventura County suggested that if the proposition passes, its
success will be largely determined by incentive power.

If participants believe that they'll end up in jail if they don't stay
clean, the measure has a good chance at working. But if people think the
law insulates them from prison, they'll probably fail treatment.

"You can't just put in your time like at traffic school," said Dr. Dave
Lewis, an addiction specialist and chief of staff at Anacapa Hospital in
Port Hueneme. "You have to take this seriously."