COURTS GIVE SOME ADDICTS CHANCE TO STRAIGHTEN OUT

SEATTLE - It was not your usual courtroom scene. For one thing, the
judge choked up as he described one woman's struggle with opiate
addiction after her arrest for forging prescriptions.

Over the last three years, she had repeatedly missed court-ordered
therapy and hearings, and the judge, J. Wesley Saint Clair of the Drug
Diversion Court, at first meted out mild punishments, like community
service. But last winter, pushed past his forgiving limit, he jailed
her briefly twice. The threat of more jail did the trick.

Now she was graduating - along with 23 other addicts who entered drug
court instead of prison. Prosecutors and public defenders applauded
when she was handed her certificate; a policewoman hugged her, and a
child shouted triumphantly, "Yeah, Mamma!"

In Seattle, as in drug courts across the country, the stern face of
criminal justice is being redrawn, and emotions are often on the
surface. Experts say drug courts have been the country's
fastest-spreading innovation in criminal justice, giving arrested
addicts a chance to avoid prison by agreeing to stringent oversight
and addiction treatment. Recent studies show drug courts are one of
the few initiatives that reduce recidivism - on average by 8 percent
to 10 percent nationally and as high as 26 percent in New York State -
and save taxpayer money.

Since Judge Saint Clair took over the King County drug court here in
2005, the annual number of graduates - drug and alcohol free for at
least six months - has more than doubled. His court has been cited by
outside experts as one of the country's best, yet a state budget
crisis is forcing a shrinkage in participants.

Since the first drug court began work, in Miami in 1989, the idea has
spread to more than 2,100 courtrooms in every state, though they still
take in only a small fraction of addicted criminals. Offenders,
usually caught in low-level dealing or stealing to support their
addictions, volunteer for 9 to 18 months or more of intrusive
supervision by a judge, including random urine testing, group therapy
and mandatory sobriety meetings. The intent is a personal
transformation that many participants say is tougher than prison - and
with the threat of prison if they drop out or are kicked out.

"I've waited 22 months for this day, and I never thought I'd make it,"
Scott Elkin, a 26-year-old hip-hop singer, told the Seattle audience
in September. A cocaine user and dealer who had been clean for two
years, Mr. Elkin had his felony charges dropped and has a job, his own
music production company and marriage plans.

Nationwide, 70,000 offenders are in adult or juvenile drug courts at
any given time, with the number growing, said C. West Huddleston III,
director of the National Association of Drug Court Professionals. The
concept has been supported by the Clinton and Bush
administrations.

"To find an intervention that works has generated great excitement in
the criminal justice community," said Greg Berman, director of the
Center for Court Innovation, a research group in New York, where Chief
Judge Judith S. Kaye has been a strong advocate.

But some scholars say that, because of high up-front costs, the
limited success of drug treatment and a shortage of judges with the
required personal talents, drug courts are unlikely to make a
significant dent in the prison population.

Some lawyers also say the courts can infringe on the rights of
defendants given that offenders usually must acknowledge guilt to
enter the court, or in some places have already agreed to a plea
bargain and sentence. Thus an addict might opt for drug court to avoid
prison or with sincere intentions of going straight, but if treatment
fails and he is expelled from the program, he must serve a sentence
without having seriously fought the charges. His total time in court
custody, between drug court and then prison, may be longer than it
would have been otherwise. Advocates respond that such offenders are
facing a plea-bargaining mill in any case, and are offered an
invaluable chance for change.

Critics also worry that the courts can monopolize scarce
drug-treatment slots at the expense of other addicts seeking help.

Clearly, the courts do not help everyone. One of the most successful
programs is in New York State, where about 1,600 offenders are in
adult drug courts. Studies found that while 40 percent dropped out of
the program along the way, those who started it, including both
dropouts and graduates, had 29 percent fewer new convictions over a
three-year period than a control group with similar criminal histories
and no contact with drug courts, Mr. Berman said.

In other regions, half or more of those who start the program do not
finish. And recidivism rates for participants are reduced by about 10
percent to 20 percent, depending upon the quality of the judges and
treatment programs, said John Roman, a researcher at the Urban
Institute, based on a recent study.

An earlier review of 57 "rigorous" drug court evaluations around the
country, led by Steve Aos of the Washington State Institute for Public
Policy, found that recidivism was reduced on average by only 8
percent, but with wide variation.

Yet even that modest reduction in crimes and prison yields cost
benefits. The report this year by the Urban Institute found that, for
55,000 people in adult drug courts, the country spends about half a
billion dollars a year in supervision and treatment but reaps more
than $1 billion in reduced law enforcement, prison and victim costs. A
large expansion would yield similar benefits, the report argued.

But some scholars, like Mark A. R. Kleiman, director of the Drug
Policy Analysis Program at the University of California, Los Angeles,
remain skeptical about the potential and the achievements. He
suggests, for example, that success rates of some courts may be
inflated because they take in offenders who are not addicted and
entered this track only to avoid prison. Dr. Kleiman advocates a
slimmed-down system that does not initially require costly treatment,
as drug courts do, but simply demands that offenders stop using drugs,
with the penalty of short stays in jail when they fail urine tests.
Such an approach has shown promise with methamphetamine users in
Hawaii, he said, and because it is far cheaper, it can be applied to
far more offenders.

Still, several drug-court graduates in Seattle and Olympia, Wash.,
said the supervision of a judge, ready to praise or jail them
depending on performance, was crucial to their success.

Allison Alexander, 26, had parents who were heroin addicts, and she
had lived on the streets since age 14, using and selling
methamphetamine.

"I couldn't have stopped on my own; I didn't know how," said Ms.
Alexander, holding her 16-month-old daughter on graduation day.

"Drug court saved my life," she told the audience, tears welling up in
the eyes of her grandparents and even the prosecutor, and she said she
aims for a career in child counseling.

The Seattle court handles about 500 offenders at a time, though state
budget cuts will reduce the number to 300 next year. Judge Saint
Clair, an animated 57-year-old, said this would cost society more in
the long run. He also tried to dispel the notion that drug courts were
a free ride.

"Drug courts work, and not because they're fuzzy - let me tell you, I
can be a hard man to deal with," Judge Saint Clair said to the
graduates, their families and friends. "For many of you, it would have
been easier just to have taken your prison time."

In Seattle, most of the offenders are addicted to cocaine, heroin or
prescription narcotics. Researchers have not established whether the
courts are more effective with one type of drug user or another.

But more than two-thirds of the clients in Thurston County, Wash.,
south of Seattle, are methamphetamine users. The court there in
Olympia is led by Judge Richard A. Strophy, who was recently
considering the case of Pepper Johnston, 26, who had lost custody of
her baby girl during the three years she was, in her words, "strung
out." Now doing well after nine months in the program, Ms. Johnston
meets her daughter after school and dreams of regaining custody.

But the judge told another woman who has missed therapy and urine
tests that he might remove her from the program, and had her
handcuffed and taken to jail until he decided.

"With meth addicts, who are paranoid and oppositional, you've got to
force them to change," Judge Strophy said. "Coerced treatment works."

Offenders are referred to drug court by prosecutors but participation
is voluntary, and some decline because they prefer brief sentences to
a year or two under the thumb of a judge, with no guarantee that they
will not fail and serve prison time anyway.

At a regular session of the Seattle court, Jenifer Paris, 36, sounded
hopeful. She was six months clean, she said, after 22 years of heroin
and cocaine use and stretches of homelessness and prostitution. She is
in a methadone maintenance program - acceptable to many drug courts -
and in therapy.

"You guys are the first people to believe in me," Ms. Paris
said.

"I'm full of gratitude for the opportunity and for you not kicking me
out," she said, eyes sweeping from Judge Saint Clair to the prosecutor
and her public defender.

"We're not done yet," Judge Saint Clair replied with a hint of a
smile.