COUNTIES TO EXPAND DRUG COURTS

Troup and the other four counties in the Coweta Judicial Circuit plan
to use a federal stimulus grant of $428,000 to expand drug courts into
each county.

The money has been earmarked for this circuit by the governor's
Criminal Justice Coordinating Council. It would be spread over three
years and then the program "has to either be self-sustaining or the
counties and municipalities have to be willing to pick it up,"
District Attorney Pete Skandalakis said Thursday.

Drug courts divert nonviolent, substance-abusing offenders from prison
and jail into treatment.

Skandalakis was notified of the grant program and called a meeting
about three weeks ago with about 40 people from the various courts,
law-enforcement agencies and governments throughout the circuit. They
talked about spending the money on capital projects or technological
improvements, but settled on a drug court program for all five counties.

"If we did individual projects, the money would be diluted,"
Skandalakis said. "We'd like to see something that benefits the entire
circuit."

Troup County would administer the grant. An application is due by
Sept. 1 and the money would be awarded in October.

Skandalakis said local governments aren't in a position to pay drug
court expenses because of the down economy, and the program needs to
be self-sustaining through user fees and other grants.

Drug courts would be in every juvenile, state and superior court in
the circuit.

"It's an ambitions plan with lots of participants, and I'm hopeful we
can get it done," Skandalakis said. "... I'm all for giving nonviolent
offenders with substance abuse problems a second chance."

Villa Rica and Temple, both in Carroll County, intend to request
$120,000 and $80,000, respectively, from the grant to upgrade
emergency communications equipment. That would put the three requests
in competition with each other, but "these people have met with us and
we're trying to work out any conflict," said Superior Court Judge Jack
Kirby of LaGrange, who heads a committee on the drug court program.

"If we present it as a unified plan, then we'll get quicker and
earlier consideration for the plan," he said.

Troup State Court Judge Jeannette Little has operated what she called
an "amazingly successful" DUI/drug court with 108 graduates since it
started on Feb. 1, 2004, and 43 currently are enrolled as an
alternative to jail time.

"I feel like we've kept an awful lot of people out of jail and turned
some people around," Little said. "A lot of people say, 'You gave me
my life back.'"

Carroll County Superior Court already has a felony drug court. Kirby
said they want to take the best of Carroll's program and "extend it
circuitwide with standardized procedures across the five counties."

"We're at the infancy of this," he said, "but the idea is to have at
least a felony drug court in each county with separate treatment teams
and separate facilities in each county, and we're hoping to use some
of the money to buy the equipment we need to do our own drug testing."

Because of their small populations, Heard and Meriwether counties
likely would get service from the other counties. A circuit wide drug
court director would have to be hired.

"Any time you can get somebody off drugs or keep a family together,
the benefits have a ripple effect," said Kirby, a longtime advocate of
drug courts. "... It sure beats the alternative of using tax money to
keep them locked in a cell."

Kirby said he wishes he could say it will be a cost savings for the
counties, although there will be incalculable long-term benefits from
"having children with clean and sober parents who are at home and working."

"We will reap the rewards down the road," he said. "Conversely, if we
don't do this, we'll suffer the consequences."

He said getting the money spent is the purpose of the stimulus grant
and "we're looking at doing something pretty quickly."