TIME'S COME FOR DRUG COURT

The concept of bringing a drug court to McHenry County has been
researched for 10 years, and it appears it finally will become a
reality by January.

McHenry County is the only collar county that has not gotten on board
with a drug court program. The main holdup has been that judicial
leaders were hoping they’d get state funding for a new judge, but that
didn’t materialize,

Drug courts first were established in 1989 in Miami in the hopes of
diverting nonviolent offenders into drug treatment programs and
existing agencies as opposed to putting them in jail or prison cells.
The idea behind them is to more aggressively focus on addiction with
frequent court appearances and, usually, weekly drug testing.

Just because the program isn’t up and running in McHenry County
doesn’t mean the concepts are foreign here. Criminal defendants with
significant drug or alcohol abuse issues often are sentenced to
intensive probation, a situation judges often describe as “having one
foot in the prison door.”

But setting aside a drug court program should help isolate the issue
of addiction and foster a more effective manner of dealing with
defendants who abuse drugs. Drugs and crime often go together, and if
you can eliminate the first problem, the second part of that equation
often doesn’t materialize.

A typical felony or misdemeanor judge has many matters to deal with,
from property crimes to violent crimes. Probation officers also have a
large variety of offenders to monitor.

Under the same principle as the recently established mental health
court program, isolating the problem for a cohesive group should only
be beneficial.

Drug court does not coddle defendants. It is true that defendants can
have their cases dismissed if they successfully complete the program.
There already are similar kinds of probation offered that come with
the same result.

But the program is rigorous, and those who can’t make it usually find
themselves back in a standard criminal courtroom facing prison time.
Conversely, government statistics say recidivism rates among offenders
who graduate from a drug court program are as low as 4 percent.

Drug abuse is a scourge that destroys individuals, families and,
sometimes, entire neighborhoods. Simply locking up users is not the
best approach to dealing with such a scourge. Besides that, it’s
expensive. Jail cells and prison cells cost taxpayers anywhere from
$20,000 to $40,000 a year for each inmate.