WITH HANDSHAKES, WORDS OF HOPE, DRUG COURT HOLDS FIRST 'GRADUATION'

"We'll know in a year from now where we are in terms of success or
failure," says Buddy Croft, coordinator of the Family and Juvenile
Drug Court, an alternative to traditional means of dealing with youth
crime.

PROVIDENCE -- The 14-year-old boy who admitted to selling marijuana on
school grounds six months ago was back in Family Court yesterday and
was handed the most unusual of judicial paperwork:

An engraved citation of accomplishment from the chief judge and a
greeting card signed by drug counselors. "Life is full of new
beginnings," the card read. "I hope that this is one of your happiest
and most successful."

And with a host of handshakes, words of encouragement to him and his
parents, and a bouquet of balloons, the boy became the first
"graduate" of Rhode Island's Family and Juvenile Drug Court.

The drug court began last January as an alternative to traditional
means of dealing with youth crime.

Rather than send a young drug offender to the state Training School
for punishment -- where experts say many youngsters' behavior worsens
- -- the drug court offers rehabilitation: intensive counseling coupled
with tough court supervision for a period of six months to a year.

Those offenders who volunteer to enter the program agree to undergo
regular drug counseling, submit to random drug tests, must obey their
parents, meet curfews and appear in court each week where a magistrate
reviews the youth's case.

Those who disobey receive penalties ranging from tougher curfews and
community service projects to 72 hours behind the Training School's
razor wire.

Nationally, more than 40 states have instituted juvenile drug courts
in the last five years.

Some were initially met with skepticism, particularly among law
enforcement officials who said they coddled criminals. But the reality
is quite the opposite, says Buddy Croft, the coordinator of Rhode
Island's drug court.

"The reluctance on the part of law enforcement was that this was going
to be a program that was soft on kids. But it really isn't. A lot of
kids don't want to go through this program, they don't want the
treatment, the intensive supervision, the family counseling, curfews
and drug screening. For some of them, it's easier to go to the
Training School than go through drug court."

And Croft says, if drug court can work, there's a huge practical
benefit as well: the savings of tens of thousands of dollars in prison
costs.

Rhode Island's drug court program, financed by a $400,000 federal
grant, currently has 28 offenders enrolled.

"We'll know in a year from now where we are in terms of success or
failure," Croft said. "This is not a perfect science."

But then neither is the current system, he adds, which is struggling
with youth crime that has become more violent.

"If all the other programs that are out there worked, there would be
no need for a drug court."

On Tuesday afternoon, about 50 members of the drug court's advisory
council -- a cross-section of representatives from law enforcement,
drug treatment, education and the law -- filed into a third-floor
courtroom in the Garrahy Judicial Center.

They were there to hear a progress report from five teenagers -- and
their parents -- involved in the program since January.

The five ranged in age from a 13-year-old charged with possession of
heroin to a 17-year-old charged with possession of crack cocaine,
marijuana and driving a stolen car. All but one were boys. The girl
was 16 and five months pregnant.

A marijuana user who had been through several drug rehabilitation
programs, she appeared to speak with candor.

"This is the only program that got me to stop using," she said. "The
minute I did something wrong I was sent to the Training School . . . I
think if I wasn't pregnant I'd be slipping a little bit more."

The hardest part of staying clean, she said, is when you leave a
program and return to your friends and school where drugs are everywhere.

"When you see kids on [the designer drug] Ecstasy and they are happy
and jumping around, it makes you want to try it," she said.

For now, the young girl's mother said, "We have piece of mind. We are
at a 100 percent better place than we were six months ago. There is
hope for the future."

The fear, she said, is in what the future holds.

"I don't want her to graduate from this program," her mother said.
Before she was enrolled in drug court, "I had many nights where I
didn't know where she was." Now, "she might be pregnant but at least
she's home."

A father speaking with his 17-year-old son behind him told of
desperate days on end when his son would disappear "and I'd be out
looking for him at 2 in the morning."

Through the supervision and drug counseling he's receiving now, "my
son's home," he said.

His son at first didn't wish to speak. But after hearing his father,
he said that "before drug court, I was running the streets, smoking
weed every day, doing what I wanted. Now I have to be home at 7 [p.m.]."

The boy admitted, however, that he still smokes marijuana "but not
like I used to, and I don't drink anymore."

Upon hearing the boy's admission, Croft, the coordinator, told the
advisory council: "We constantly struggle with what is success.
Relapse is part of treatment. But if we have success with some of
these kids it will be wonderful."

Yesterday at the graduation ceremony, the focus was on
hope.

If in six months a review of the graduating boy's case finds he has
remained drug-free and out of trouble, this chapter of his life will
be closed, said Magistrate Jeanne L. Shepard.

A group of about 20 peers and their parents, Chief Judge Jeremiah S.
Jeremiah Jr. and several counselors had gathered for the occasion.

Shepard shook the young boy's hand. "This is the reason why we have
drug court," she said, "so young people like you can get on with their
lives. I want you to have a healthy, happy life."