HAWAII'S SPECIAL TREATMENT COURTS THREATENED BY FISCAL CRISIS

Budget Cuts Forcing Programs to Treat Fewer Offenders, Delay Services

By the time she was 16, Christianna Maglinti, a high school dropout
and runaway, had been arrested dozens of times, had been using
crystal meth and was well on her way to becoming another inmate in
Hawai'i's overcrowded prison system.

Then she was referred to Girls Court, an alternative Judiciary
program that takes a more holistic approach to dealing with
offenders. Like the 10 other specialized treatment courts in Hawai'i,
this gender-specific one addresses the underlying issues - domestic
abuse, drug addiction, teen pregnancy and the like - that often
prompt troubled individuals to offend again and again, usually
landing behind bars.

To try to stop that cycle, the specialty courts provide treatment to
deal with the underlying issues, regular monitoring to keep the
clients on track and swift sanctions if they violate the rules.

Today, Maglinti, 20, has her high school diploma, has been off drugs
for more than two years, is employed by a nonprofit organization that
helps mentally challenged adults and frequently talks to wayward
girls about how she has turned her life around.

She credits Girls Court with playing a major role in that turnaround.

"They're really not just trying to punish you," said Maglinti, whose
success story was highlighted recently in Chief Justice Ronald Moon's
State of the Judiciary address. "They're trying to help you."

Like the rest of state government, however, that help is being
squeezed by the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression.

As a result of budget cuts, the 11 treatment courts, including those
for adults with mental health issues and families with substance
abuse problems, are handling fewer cases, providing less treatment
and delaying more services, Judiciary officials say. At least one
court is at risk of running out of treatment money by the end of the
fiscal year, five have wait lists for accepting new clients, and
O'ahu's Adult Drug Court has reduced its treatment capacity by nearly
20 percent.

During his address to the Legislature last month, Moon warned that
more cuts could have a devastating effect on court operations, even
hinting at the possibility of eliminating the alternative
service-oriented programs altogether.

Because of cuts already imposed, the chief justice said, the O'ahu
drug court reduced its treatment capacity to 130 clients, from 160,
leaving 30 defendants on a wait list and likely headed for prison.
Putting 30 more people into an already overcrowded prison system
would cost the state $1.5 million annually, Moon said, compared with
the roughly $877,000 budget for the O'ahu drug court for this fiscal year.

He framed his address by underscoring the successes of the treatment
courts in substantially reducing the rate of recidivism among offenders.

Moon's speech highlighted the challenge facing state decision-makers
amid the severe fiscal crisis.

One of the fundamental questions: Can the state afford to maintain
these alternative programs, which have produced impressive results
but reach relatively small numbers of clients, even as the
Judiciary's core services have been reduced because of budget cuts?

Long-Term Savings

The treatment courts represent nearly 4 percent - or more than $5
million - of the Judiciary's $139 million budget and handle several
hundred cases each year, compared with the thousands that go through
the regular system.

"I would hate to see this discontinued," said Public Defender Jack
Tonaki. "Everyone is having to make tough choices."

The challenge is made all the more difficult, Tonaki and other
advocates say, because the treatment courts have helped people stay
out of prison, saving the state millions of dollars in incarceration
costs and the much-harder-to-quantify social costs resulting from
domestic violence, substance abuse, homelessness, unemployment,
juvenile delinquency and other problems that typically influence the
offenders' behavior.

Yet the regular court system, the advocates say, is ill equipped to
deal with these cases. Cutting funding to the alternative programs
could save money in the short run but result in far greater costs to
the state and society in the long term, advocates say.

"Obviously, in terrible times, everyone is constrained, and I would
argue that money should come from other parts of the criminal justice
system that are overused, like corrections," University of Hawai'i
professor and criminologist Meda Chesney-Lind said in an e-mail. "I
wouldn't support across-the-board cuts that tend to cripple small
initiatives. We know that huge swaths of the current system are not
functioning optimally, so they really need to have new ideas infused
into the work they are currently doing."

Referral Required

The treatment courts deal mostly with nonviolent repeat offenders,
many of whom had probation revoked one or more times. A review team
that includes the client's attorney (usually a public defender),
prosecutor, judge, case manager and others must recommend the
defendant for the program, with the judge having the final say.
Clients are referred to treatment services, such as counseling, based
on their needs, appear before a judge at least monthly to review
their progress and are rewarded for successes or quickly sanctioned
for violations.

The programs often involve participation of family members, who are
considered key to the offender's long-term rehabilitation. In Girls
Court, for instance, a parent is required to attend each court
session and participate in counseling and other court-ordered activities.

The idea behind the courts is that if the underlying problems
contributing to the person's troubles aren't addressed, the person is
likely to offend again and pass such behavior on to the next generation.

The alternative programs, most started within the past decade, have
produced encouraging results.

The average recidivism rate among those who graduate from the
specialty courts is 6 percent to 8 percent, compared with roughly 50
percent among those on general probation, said Dee Dee Letts,
treatment court coordinator on O'ahu.

Among the first four groups who completed the Girls Court program
since its inception in 2004, the number of reported runaways dropped
94 percent, law violations fell 84 percent and detention home
admissions declined 66 percent, according to a December 2009
evaluation by Janet Davidson, a Chaminade University assistant
professor of criminology.

When the girls did run away, the number of days spent on the run
dropped 84 percent, Davidson's study found.

Girls Court recently was designated a best practice by the federal
Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention.

It is established on the premise that girls enter the system for much
different reasons than boys and need to be treated differently to
break the cycle of repeated offenses.

Circuit Judge Karen Radius, who was instrumental in the establishment
of Girls Court, one of the first of its kind in the nation, believes
so passionately in the program that she continues to preside over it
on a volunteer basis. Having retired from the bench at the end of
2009, Radius now spends about three days a week volunteering her time.

"I can't leave you guys," she told a group of girls and their
families in a recent court session. "You're too important to me."

Support Is Key

That kind of support was key to convincing Maglinti that the people
associated with the court really wanted to help, she said. She
initially resisted their overtures, reflecting a reluctance - fueled
by the trauma in her life - to trust anyone.

Her father had died when she was 9. Her mother abused drugs. The
family eventually became homeless, and Maglinti and her siblings were
placed in foster homes by the state. Maglinti rebelled by repeatedly
running away. She was physically abused on the streets and turned to
drugs and fighting to cope with the pain.

Once in Girls Court, Maglinti said, she realized how her life had
come undone by the wrong choices she made, and she began to trust
that the people there were trying to help her.

"It kept giving me motivation to make the right choices," she said.

Establishing trust also was critical for Andre Stovall, a former
University of Hawai'i basketball player on probation for a drug
offense in the 1990s.

Stovall, 47, who suffers from major depression and has a history of
drug abuse, said his willingness to open up to people interested in
helping him has been key to his success in Mental Health Court.

Before starting the program nine months ago, Stovall had been in and
out of prison for repeated probation violations, including continued drug use.

But during a recent court session, Judge Michael Wilson praised
Stovall for being clean and sober the past nine months.

As a gallery of fellow Mental Health Court clients applauded, the
judge gave Stovall a $20 gift card and a sobriety coin marking his
success so far.

If Stovall keeps on track, he expects to graduate from the program by
April 2011.

The main difference between Mental Health and regular court, he said,
was that the latter didn't address the causes of his behavior problems.

"Mental Health Court has been a refreshing change," Stovall said. "It
helps you break down barriers of trust. I now believe in the people
in the program, from the judge to the bailiffs . They're like a
separate family for me."