COURT OFFICIALS LAMBASTE DRUG TREATMENT INITIATIVE

Too Soft On Punishment

A proposal to put nonviolent drug offenders into treatment rather than
prison is drawing fire not only from law enforcement and victims groups,
but also from some of the professionals it's designed to support.

"It would be devastating to drug courts in California," insisted Judge
Jeffrey S. Tauber, a former Oakland Municipal Court jurist who now is
president of the National Association of Drug Court Professionals. "It's a
mockery in the sense that its proponents suggest it will assist and enhance
drug courts. It will destroy drug courts."

The Drug Treatment Diversion Program Act initiative -- bankrolled by
wealthy drug policy reformers including billionaire financier George Soros
- -- qualified Wednesday for November's ballot. Secretary of State Bill Jones
said its backers submitted 713,849 signatures, far more than the 419,260
required.

"Our goal is to replace a failed drug war with a more effective public
health strategy, to treat drug use as a health issue, not something that in
every case required incarceration and punishment," campaign spokesman Dave
Fratello said.

The initiative requires that any person convicted for the first or second
time of a nonviolent drug possession offense receive probation instead of
jail and be required to complete a drug treatment program up to a year
long. Failure to complete the program would let a judge intensify the
treatment or revoke the convict's probation.

Upon completing the program, the defendant could petition to have the drug
conviction expunged, making it available only to law enforcement and
ineligible as a strike under the "Three Strikes, You're Out" sentencing
law. Defendants convicted of a serious or violent strike within the past
five years would be ineligible for the program.

The plan would cost about $120 million a year for 51/2 years beginning in
2001, but the state Legislative Analyst's Office estimates prison savings
could reach $150 million per year.

Some politicians and drug treatment providers already have endorsed the
initiative, including state Sen. Don Perata, D-Oakland; the Berkeley and
Oakland city councils; and East Palo Alto drug treatment provider Free at Last.

But as the National Association of Drug Court Professionals met Thursday in
San Francisco for its annual training conference, it was clear this group
and its California affiliate strongly oppose the measure.

Santa Clara County Superior Court Judge Stephen Manley called it "a serious
step backward" toward a failed system in which addicts aren't held
accountable for their recovery: "This initiative ... would lead to more
addicts not receiving meaningful treatment."

Alameda County Superior Court Judge Peggy Hora, who presides over Hayward's
drug court and sits on the state association's board, said the initiative
disrupts the "carrot-and-stick" balance of incentive and punishment that's
vital to successful rehabilitation.

"It's all carrot, and addicts need external structure until they can
develop their own internal structures. Addicts will continue to use, lie,
cheat and steal until they can face their own addictions," Hora said. "This
is going to allow people to continue to use, continue to go down to their
spiraling deaths."

Hora also criticized the measure's limitation of treatment to one year; its
failure to fund drug testing; its prohibition of jail time as part of
probation; and its requirement that all nonviolent drug offenders get
treatment instead of prison regardless whether they plead guilty. That last
element could jam courts with offenders who decide to take a chance on a
jury trial because they have little to lose.

"It keeps everything in the criminal justice system, but takes away all our
sanctions," she said. "It takes away every tool I have as a judge."

Tauber said the much-needed money the measure provides isn't worth the loss
of judicial control.

"Why would the addicts do anything we say?" he asked rhetorically. "Because
we say it nicely?"

The California Correctional Peace Officers Association notes courts would
be unable to send nonviolent parolees back to jail on a drug use or
possession violation. Spokesman Jeff Thompson said parole officers see drug
use as a warning sign that a parolee has returned to crime, and as a chance
to get that person off the streets before his or her crimes escalate.

"It's playing some Russian roulette with public safety by handcuffing our
parole agents," he said.

Fratello said he's baffled by the opposition. The measure does not pay for
drug testing, he acknowledged, nor does it bar state or federal officials
from providing other funding for such testing. And while it requires
probation and treatment over jail, he said, it lets judges send drug users
who fail their treatment to prison, just as current law provides.

Existing drug courts and the initiative share a common goal, Fratello said:
getting addicts out of prison and into treatment.

"We're really debating one tree when there's a whole forest to deal with,"
he said.

Local drug treatment providers have mixed feelings.

"I'm not going to take money when I know it's baloney. And right now, it's
looking like baloney," said Joe Loceria, director of CURA Inc., a Fremont
drug treatment facility. He shared many of Hora's concerns about the
measure's lack of punitive clout. "These people are very well-meaning. The
essence of their idea is very well-taken," Loceria said. "But I think it
really needs some serious thought."

Peter Budlong, director of Berkeley's New Bridge Foundation, said beggars
can't be choosers.

"Tthere is an enormous disparity between the publicly funded treatment
capacity and the demand," he said. "And any way to stem that demand and
make up that disparity is a good thing."