DRUG COURT - ADDICTS AND COURTS COOPERATE
IN ALTERNATIVE RECOVERY PATH

Paula Borusewicz-Clark stands before Judge Sue Burch with her
3-year-old daughter in her arms. Both mother and daughter wear their
blond hair pulled back.

=93Hi Mini Me,=94 Burch coos.

The little girl sucks her thumb and looks down at the
carpet.

=93She just had her tonsils taken out about a week ago,=94 the mother
says.

Then Borusewicz-Clark commences to update Judge Burch on the last two
weeks of her life. The judge listens as Borusewicz-Clark relates her
personal problems, and then gently chides the defendant about the
money -- $1,970 in restitution and court fees =97 that separates
Borusewicz-Clark from graduation.

After the confab and a smattering of applause from the gallery,
Borusewicz-Clark and child sit down. It is a graduation day, pregnant
with festivity and the promise of store-bought sheet cake, but the
daughter persists in looking miserable. She rests her head wearily
against mama's breast and plugs her mouth with her thumb, her brown
eyes languidly scanning the floor. Her mother, on the other hand,
jokes with the attorneys, the judge, and engages in an upbeat patter
with other clients who fill the rows behind her.

Not long ago that this scene would have seemed impossible. Fourteen
months ago Borusewicz-Clark -- not her daughter =97 would have been the
one fiercely unhappy about appearing in this courtroom. At that time,
said daughter was across town in her grandparents' care, with hope for
reunification dim and contingent upon one thing: Borusewicz-Clark's
emergence from the depths of crack cocaine addiction.

Yet here they both stand, mother and daughter together, against all
odds.

In any other part of the criminal justice system, Borusewicz-Clark
would be an anomaly, a statistical outlier. But in Guilford County's
Drug Treatment Court, she's just another client.

If rehabilitating drug addicted criminals were a high-stakes casino
game, drug treatment court would be the savvy professional in a room
filled with rank amateurs. They are constantly beating the odds.

Against all probability, Guilford's Drug Treatment Court has succeeded
where others failed over and over again. They enroll the worst of the
repeat drug and alcohol addicted criminals and routinely graduate
sober, respectable citizens. The drug treatment court merits praise
from almost all quarters as an exception to the rest of the county's
criminal justice system, where addicts often cycle through jail and
court with startling regularity.

But for all their success with clients, one obstacle continues to vex
the court -- money. Despite lobbying and letter writing, the
participants' ability to convince state legislators to support their
work has been noticeably less successful than the work itself.

So even as the drug court team works to improve the outcomes of those
whose lives have been unmoored by addiction, the future of the program
itself remains unclear.

Wheaton Casey sits behind a massive desk that pushes the rest of her
office furniture toward the perimeter. Casey, the drug treatment court
administrator, is a small bespectacled woman, and anyone else of her
stature would be dwarfed by the stately piece of hardwood.

But not Casey. She clasps her hands and hoists her elbows onto the
desktop in the manner of a general surveying the battlefield. The
granddaughter of a judge was one of Guilford College's first female
criminal justice majors. She helped start the county's drug treatment
court in addition to pioneering the pretrial services department about
15 years ago. Before that, she led Alcohol and Drug Services.

=93I applied at [Alcohol and Drug Services] right after college,=94 Casey
said. =93They didn't give me a job, so I came back and took a typing
test. I eventually ended up running the place.=94

Her nickname is =93Judge Casey.=94

=93We've been in funding battles for the past couple of years,=94 Casey
said. =93Last year, the funding was limited to sentenced offenders.=94

That's a problem because, as Casey can tell you, Guilford County based
its program upon the deferred offender model. Defendants eligible for
the program must submit a guilty plea for whatever crimes the state
alleges they have committed. In lieu of sentencing, the convict
endures one to two years of drug treatment court.

The model has been in place since before drug treatment court opened
in December 2002, the brainchild of Judge E. Raymond Alexander, who
died before the first clients were admitted. The court has been
renamed in his honor on a collection of small, homemade signs marking
pretrial services' suite of offices.

Drug treatment court is exactly what it sounds like: a court-monitored
treatment program. Clients submit to urinalysis up to three times a
week, weekly meetings with case managers, 12-step meetings three times
a week and court every two weeks. The team and Alcohol and Drug
Services collaborate to determine any additional treatment.

When a deferred client completes the treatment program, they withdraw
their guilty plea and the state dismisses the original charges.

=93It's a carrot and stick approach,=94 Casey said.

And it has worked to get clients clean and keep them from accumulating
drug-related charges on their records that so often impede the reentry
into society.

But now the Administrative Offices of the Courts in Raleigh, in an
attempt to standardize drug treatment court services in 23
jurisdictions across the state, has limited state funding to sentenced
offenders. When Casey and Judge Burch objected to the change, the AOC
told them they could keep the deferred program, but they have to pay
for it themselves.

From its inception in the mid-1990's, funding for the state=92s drug
treatment courts has fluctuated with the economy, from a budget of
almost $2 million in 2000-2001 to $775,427 in 2003-2004. The level of
state funding has eked back up to $1.3 million for 2006-2007, with the
state even deigning to fund a few extra positions. But before public
outcry squelched the urge to target drug treatment courts in 2005, the
General Assembly had proposed slashing the funding by as much as $1
million.

The AOC monies fund only court-related positions like administrators,
case managers and attorneys. Through a memorandum of agreement, the
state dips into Department of Health and Human Services coffers to pay
for treatment. AOC implemented the dual funding scheme to stabilize
support for the program, but since DHHS dollars for mental health
treatment are in short supply, the resulting system has added clients
to overstuffed rosters.

Thus the state's treatment dollars -- already stretched thin =97 have
been approved only for target populations. And that population,
according to the North Carolina Offender Management Model, means
sentenced offenders.

For the first three years since it began operation in 2002, the
Guilford County Drug Treatment Court possessed a buffer from the
vicissitudes of state funding in the form of a federal grant. But the
nearly half million in federal funds was intended as seed money, not
as a long-term solution, and Guilford County outlasted its eligibility
to extend the grant. As of March 2006, Guilford County's Drug
Treatment Court no longer qualified for the federal grant that has
sustained it.

=93[President Bush] is actually a huge proponent of drug court,=94 said
Kirstin Frescoln, the state treatment court manager. =93His niece was
served through a drug court in Florida. But in the last couple of
years, the federal drug court budget has suffered due to competing
priorities.=94

The county's drug treatment court already benefits from about $106,000
worth of in-kind donations courtesy of the judge and lawyers. The
county doesn't bill the court for office space and the $500 fee from
each client goes into an emergency treatment fund. But all that
accounts for only 25 percent of the annual budget.

Guilford County Drug Treatment Court actively serves 17 people, with a
handful of others in the =93opt-out period,=94 a two-week window during
which potential clients can decide whether the court is right for
them. The drug treatment court team has kept admitting defendants,
many of whom beg for admission. Casey said there is an obligation to
serve everyone once they're admitted. But she is unsure whether the
money to fund new clients will ever materialize.

Until last month, Rob was a client in Guilford County Drug Treatment
Court. But the man sitting at a small table in a suburban coffee shop
bears more physical resemblance to his former incarnation as a US Army
serviceman than his dozen-odd years as a cocaine user. His light brown
hair is cut high and tight, his goatee neatly etched from nose to chin.

Rob entered the Army when he was 20 years old and his career started
promisingly with a quick succession of promotions. Although the
then-sergeant had traded teenage cocaine use for alcohol and
marijuana, substance abuse started to slow his progress up the chain
of command. Eventually, his drinking and smoking reversed that climb
altogether.

=93I had an option to stay in or get out,=94 Rob said. =93But by then I had
been reduced in rank and I could have only gone so far.=94

He chose to get out. His marriage disintegrated soon after the demise
of his military career and his ex-wife and daughter moved to Kansas
while Rob stayed in North Carolina.

=93I hooked up with old friends and I just started using cocaine again,=94
he said. =93It got so I couldn't support my habit.=94

Rob described himself as a binge user. He'd go on two-week benders,
neglect work, then sober up and feel remorseful. After several years
the lifestyle started wearing on him, but by then his habit had
spiraled out of control.

As he bottomed out, he decided to burglarize a business where he had
recently been employed. A few days after the crime he turned himself
in and languished for two months in jail.

=93I was drunk when I made the decision to do it,=94 he said. =93But even so
I knew it was kind of the end of the road.=94

=93I didn't want a lawyer, I just wanted to plead guilty to the
charges,=94 he said. =93At that point I was really kind of hopeless.=94

Then one day a member of the drug court team turned up at the jail to
interview Rob. It was the opportunity that, without knowing it, he had
been looking for. He filled out the paperwork and was released from
jail a week later.

The first few months of drug treatment court can be difficult for some
clients who struggle to adjust to the demanding schedule and constant
paperwork. But Rob adjusted well to the system.

=93I had been in jail for two months and I was willing to do whatever I
needed to do to stay out of there,=94 he said.

He developed a close relationship with his case coordinator Donnie
Harris, who helped him navigate treatment and personal issues. Rob
aced the program for about nine months, but then he experienced a
relapse. Honesty is valued in drug treatment court, so Rob admitted
his slip almost as soon as he'd sobered up.

=93They were very, I don't know what the word is... empathetic,=94 he
said. =93They just tried to encourage me through it and help me
establish more things in my life that were positive.=94

Rob knew he wanted to pursue an education, and he is now taking
pre-engineering courses and considering career options.

He recently attended a family reunion on the beach. It's an annual
event, but this is the first one Rob's been able to attend since he
started using. He said the event wasn't a celebration per se, but that
it did mark a victory.

=93That team, they really care about you,=94 Rob said. =93They're almost
emotionally involved with each case. It's more like a reformation than
a punishment.

=93But that's what the criminal justice system is supposed to be like,
right?=94

Amy Stern has put as much as 300 miles on her car in one week
patrolling the six counties she serves as Southern Regional Treatment
Alternatives to Street Crimes (TASC) coordinator for Alcohol and Drug
Services. Into that hectic schedule, every other week she squeezes in
an appearance at drug treatment court, where she functions as the
treatment provider liaison. Given her wide range of travel, Stern is
deeply familiar with the drug trends occurring all over the western
section of the Piedmont.

=93I see more meth in the rural areas,=94 she said. =93But it has not taken
the place of crack cocaine and alcohol in Guilford County.=94

Almost 60 percent of those enrolled in drug treatment court list crack
cocaine as their drug of choice.

=93Crack is such a huge problem here,=94 said Assistant District Attorney
Randi Spiker, one of two prosecutors assigned to drug treatment court.

Stern sees a lot of crack addicts, but she said the treatment
community doesn't yet understand what makes the drug so addictive.
Even Borusewicz-Clark has trouble describing it.

=93Basically it makes you numb from all your feelings,=94 she said. =93And
it gives you energy. It made me forget all my problems and really put
me in the moment.=94

Borusewicz-Clark and her husband had been using powder cocaine
recreationally when she accidentally ordered =93hard cocaine=94 from her
dealer. When he showed up with an eight ball of crack, not the powder
cocaine she thought she was getting, Borusewicz-Clark tried to get him
to take it back. Because it was such a large order, he wouldn't, so
she and her husband tried it.

In the span of a year-and-a-half, Borusewicz-Clark and her husband
transformed from the heads of a young family to a pair of homeless
addicts who were physically abusive to each other. Child Protective
Services removed her two daughters and placed them in the care of
Borusewicz-Clark's parents. At one point when she was high, she signed
over permanent custody.

Borusewicz-Clark's drug addiction odyssey bears no small resemblance
to the film Requiem for a Dream.

=93I came from a nice Christian family,=94 she said. =93But all of a sudden
I became this beast nobody knew.=94

Because she was married and her husband was her partner in crack
addiction, Borusewicz-Clark never prostituted, although almost all the
other female addicts she knew did. At the height of their habit, she
and her husband burned up at least 200 dollars a day in crack cocaine.

Neither had a steady job so they turned to family, friends and crime
to obtain the money they needed to support their habit.

=93[Our families] were stupid and gullible,=94 she said. =93We told them we
needed money to get to a rehab place in Raleigh. And bam! We got the
car filled up, food bought and had money left over for crack.=94

=93The addicts I know could run the darn world if they put as much
energy into it as they do feeding their habit,=94 said Carri Munns, the
drug treatment court coordinator.

They find ways to game the system and slip through the cracks, to do
whatever it takes to avoid suffering the consequences of their
actions. That's part of the reason the traditional criminal justice
system so often fails to stop the relentless slide of drug addiction.

If an addict serving probation fails a drug test, they have violated
the terms of their probation and must appear in court. But the lapse
between their violation and an appearance before a judge can last
several months -- plenty of time for the already doomed defendant to
get into more trouble.

=93We address every single issue every single day,=94 Casey
said.

Clients in drug treatment court who slip up are sanctioned
immediately, with anything from extra 12-step meetings to jail time.
But a single mistake will not get a client thrown out of the program.

=93Relapse is a very important part of recovery,=94 Stern said. =93It is not
uncommon for an addict to relapse and then say, `You know, I didn't
even enjoy it.'=94

Drug treatment courts use a collaborative criminal justice model
strikingly different from its adversarial criminal justice
counterpart. Although Judge Burch has the final say, she listens to
recommendations of all team members and the clients before issuing a
sanction or promotion.

Drug treatment court is what the criminal justice system might be if
it took its cues from medical practice. The team stands on the front
lines of what has been referred to as Guilford County's crack epidemic
- -- a condition with multitudes of health, legal and economic
ramifications. It's a situation that requires intensive care.

The redefinition of traditional courtroom roles requires some
cognitive readjustment.

=93As a prosecutor it's completely counterintuitive,=94 said Randi Spiker,
the assistant district attorney. =93It's a complete 180 from our normal
job duty.=94

In a traditional courtroom Spiker would advocate for the victim and
the state, usually pushing for punishment. In drug court she often
finds herself rooting for the defendant and arguing against the most
punitive sanction.

On the flipside, public defender Jennifer Rierson has to convince her
clients to plead guilty to enter the program. And once they have been
admitted, she often argues for tough sanctions if she thinks that they
best meets the clients' needs. Rierson and Spiker make most of the
referrals to drug treatment court by scanning their case files for
nonviolent offenders accused of class H and I felonies who have
criminal patterns consistent with drug addiction.

=93When I first got assigned to drug court I thought, `what is this
liberal nonsense?'=94 Spiker said. =93But it is just the only facet of the
court system that is there to help. And it works.=94

The two attorneys handle a lot of drug-related crime. In fact it's the
bulk of their caseload.

=93This has just been fantastic for the judicial system,=94 said Davis
North, a local criminal defense lawyer. =93I've had some successes in
there that I didn't ever think could be changed.=94

North has had a couple of clients enter the drug treatment court
program and he's seen it work.

=93People that have had long-term drug problems just do stupid things,=94
North said. =93Those who qualify as habitual offenders, they've taken
some of these people and turned them into pretty productive citizens.=94

After Borusewicz-Clark signed over her custodial rights to her
parents, she started smoking every day. Since she didn't prostitute,
she would steal and forge checks from her parents' account to get money.

=93There were days my husband would walk into the food store looking so
skinny and walk out looking like Santa Claus,=94 she said. =93I don't know
how they never knew. We would sell steaks to make money.=94

During the year and a half she used she went to jail three times and
heard about drug treatment court every time she was inside. Jail is no
joke, she said, but it wasn't that bad for her.

Borusewicz-Clark lucked out when she landed in Guilford County Drug
Treatment Court, because the state has scant treatment options for
women. The only one in the criminal justice system -- the Mary Francis
Center -- is limited to convicts serving active sentences of eight
months or longer. Very rarely do nonviolent offenders receive such
prison time.

Even in jail, clever addicts found ways to sneak in the object of
their craving. In county jail, inmates fashioned crack pipes out of
Chap Stick tubes and Hershey's Kiss wrappers. They=92d secret the
contraband in bodily orifices or swallow it and throw it back up.

When she was out of jail Borusewicz-Clark was no less free, but her
confinement centered on the cycle of her own addiction.

=93Of course there were times we would stay up for six days straight,=94
she said. =93By the end we'd start hallucinating and getting violent.
Then we'd sleep for a day and a half. As soon as you get up you=92re
back at it again.=94

Coming down off crack cocaine is psychologically taxing, Stern said.
Even though crack addicts don't suffer the physical danger involved in
detoxification from opiates or alcohol, Alcohol and Drug Services used
to recommend clinical supervision. Unfortunately the state has since
limited their detox funding to addicts in physical danger.

=93Detox and withdrawal from crack cocaine can be miserable,=94 Stern
said, =93but it ain't gonna kill you.=94

That almost wasn't the case with Borusewicz-Clark and her husband. In
February of last year, as the couple came down from a days-long high,
Borusewicz-Clark and her husband chose to end it all. They attempted
suicide by overdosing on Tylenol sleep medicine. When her husband
started having seizures, Borusewicz-Clark reconsidered and called an
ambulance. Once they arrived at the hospital, the medicine's effects
caught up with her and she fainted. The suicide attempt landed her at
the John Umstead Mental Hospital in Butner, NC.

=93Butner was a freak thing because the people there were really, really
emotionally disturbed,=94 she said.

The drug treatment court team struggles constantly with issues of
homelessness and mental illness among potential clients. They help
match those with manageable mental illness with the appropriate
therapy and work to stabilize housing as a first priority.

But those issues, among others, have erected challenges for both the
team and the clients. A 2005 AOC evaluation of Guilford County Drug
Treatment Court revealed that the program had only a 15 percent
graduation rate, less than half the 35 percent rate for the state.
Once the report factored in active clients, the retention rate jumped
to 42 percent, still less than the state average of 66 percent.

By June 2006 the graduation rate for Guilford County Drug Treatment
Court had risen to 25 percent. In its three and a half years of
existence, the court has served 106 clients and graduated 26. Of
those, 24 were deferred prosecution cases compared to only two
sentenced offenders.

The court serves almost an equal number of men and women, black and
white. National research has produced compelling numbers in support of
drug treatment court models. Recidivism rates for graduates are one
half to one third of those who go to jail or probation, according to a
2003 National Institute of Justice study. And the Washington State
Institute for Public Policy estimated a $1.74 return in investment to
the community for every dollar spent on drug treatment court programs.

But numbers, in the case of the Guilford County Drug Treatment Court,
only bookmark the important parts of the whole story. Clients who are
=93in compliance,=94 that is giving clean drug tests, making appointments
and going to 12 step meetings, speak to the judge first and are
greeted with a round of applause. Those struggling in the program
appear last.

In late June, corrections officers led in the last client to see Judge
Burch, a massive man whose protuberant stomach stretched the orange
cloth of his prison jumpsuit. The judge would dismiss him from the
program for committing another offense -- an entry in the unmitigated
failure column by state standards.

=93I lost everything I had in two weeks,=94 the inmate said. =93But it
taught me something, because I never had nothing to lose until I got
into this program.=94

Before he left the courtroom for the short trip across Eugene Street
to jail, he asked how he could make donations to help keep the program
afloat. This time, when he gets out of jail, he hopes to start his own
landscaping business.

Borusewicz-Clark's entree into drug treatment court came courtesy of a
case of mistaken identity. Several patrol cars, their lights blazing,
swooped down on her as she stood on a street corner.

=93It was like a being rescued by a bunch of angels,=94 she said. =93All
because they thought I was some girl named Candy.=94

She said charges were filed even after they sorted out her identity.
Right before her arrest, she and her husband had borrowed a car from
an acquaintance, stripped it and sold everything for drug money.
Although she blames her husband for the actual wrongdoing,
Borusewicz-Clark used the charges to finally enter the drug treatment
court she'd heard so much about.

Last year she sent Judge Burch and the rest of the drug treatment
court team a photograph of her and her two children. Most families
document the few couple years of their children's lives with almost
constant photography, but for a year and a half hers was not a normal
family. The card was the first such portrait since her youngest was an
infant. To Judge Burch and company, she captioned the card: =93Thank
you, you made this possible.=94

Her husband has since returned from a private Christian recovery
facility recently and has logged six months of sobriety. During his
absence, Borusewicz-Clark found and furnished an apartment and bought
a car. After she graduates from drug treatment court, she said she
plans to pursue her GED, but mostly wants to concentrate on family and
sobriety.

At the end of the drug treatment court session, Judge Burch announces,
=93It's time for fishbowl!=94

A client selects three pieces of paper from the scraps in the bowl.
Those who are in compliance submit their names for the game. The three
winners receive gift certificates to McDonald's as a reward -- another
carrot, if you will. Borusewicz-Clark's name is not chosen.

=93That's it, I=92m done with this program and done with the fishbowl,=94
she says in mock indignation.

Then, as others in the courtroom float toward the bench to enjoy
graduation cake, Borusewicz-Clark stands and adjusts the little girl
in her arms. Then they walk out together, two towheads tilted toward
one another.