DRUG USERS GIVEN CHANCE TO AVOID JAIL

THE GOVERNMENT will this week give courts a controversial alternative to
sending drug-using persistent offenders back to prison.

New Drug Treatment and Testing Orders are being launched in three pilot
areas, offering addicts the chance of a strict detoxification and
rehabilitation programme instead of being sent back to the overcrowded and
drug-infested prison system.

The programme, which is due to be introduced nationally in 18 months, will
be piloted from this week in Gloucestershire, Croydon and Liverpool.

In Gloucester, Steve Gyde's 23-year career of car-thieving, burglary, arson
and drug-dealing has sent the crime rate soaring. At yet another court
appearance earlier this year he expected, once again, a prison sentence.

Having been caught with a large quantity of heroin, he seemed likely to be
jailed for five years. Instead, the judge decided to give him one last chance.

Now Gyde, 37, sits on a sofa with a dozen acupuncture needles protruding
from his left ear, sipping herbal tea and planning an honest future.

He is among the first of hundreds of drug-addicted persistent offenders who
are to be given the chance to rectify their criminal behaviour rather than
being sent back to prison.

Gloucestershire Probation Service's Drug Stabilisation Treatment Programme
has allowed Gyde to stay off heroin for seven months and turn his back on
crime for the first time in his adult life.

A father of four, who has never worked, he was known around town as
"Skeletal" because of his drug-ravaged features. "My skin looked like it
had been stretched out over my bones," he said. "If I had carried on using
heroin, I would be dead by now."

Now he follows a fitness regime and plans to open a sandwich bar. His
transformation has already reduced Gloucestershire's crime bill by more
than UKP50,000.

Gyde is one of seven successful graduates of the programme, which is run in
conjunction with the Severn NHS Trust. It is a hard regime. Most of the
other 41 offenders have relapsed into drug-taking and have been sent back
to court to be sentenced for their original offence.

The addicts start the course with a methadone-based detoxification course,
lasting for up to 12 weeks. They are drug-tested three times a week
throughout the six-month programme.

Gill McKenzie, head of Gloucestershire Probation Service, said: "There is
no hiding place for them and clearly this is not a soft option. It is a
massive leap forward in the treatment of drug abusers."

The course is based on a daily group therapy session which begins with Eden
Sutcliffe, a community psychiatric nurse, sticking acupuncture needles into
the ears of each addict.

Addicts accepted on to the scheme must pass an assessment interview, often
lasting several hours, at which they must demonstrate a genuine desire to
turn their lives around.

Dave Conway, a probation officer, said: "If they are willing to commit
themselves 100 per cent then we will be 100 per cent behind them. If they
are not, then they are thrown off the programme, because they are taking a
place which could be given to someone else."

If an addict fails to appear for three group therapy sessions they are
automatically sent back to court.

The programme has the enthusiastic support of local magistrates and police,
who hope it might break the cycle of processing the same offenders through
the courts and prisons.

After the launch of the pilot project this week, the Gloucestershire scheme
will expand to treat 120 addicts a year, supported by an annual government
grant of UKP300,000. If the pilot schemes are successful they will be
extended to the rest of the country in 2000.

Checked-by: Mike Gogulski