BOULDER COURT'S CARING TOUCH AND REWARDS HELP DRUG REHABILITATION STICK

A year ago, nobody would have called the now 50-year-old Patty
McParland - 30 years addicted to drugs and alcohol, homeless and a
frequent squad-car passenger - a success story.

That's what made the $200 voucher for substance-abuse treatment and
the free movie passes that Judge Thomas Mulvahill handed down as
praise for her new sobriety so meaningful.

McParland beamed as she exited Boulder County's Courtroom I that
recent Tuesday morning in December accompanied by the applause of 15
of her peers.

"You get praise. It boosts morale. It helps a lot with that," said
McParland, now a year sober and in transitional housing. "A lot of
times, even on regular probation, you're doing a great job and the
only thing you hear from those people is what you're doing wrong."

Drug courts aren't new - Colorado has 21, including the first opened
in Denver in 1994 - but the gift certificates, grocery cards, movie
tickets and other goodies this court uses make it stand out, according
to District 20 Chief Judge Roxanne Bailin, who launched Boulder's
court four years ago.

"One of the critical parts of a successful drug court program is the
immediacy of sanctions and the immediacy of rewards," Bailin said.
"Tangible rewards maximize success. It relates to the fact that people
who are addicted to drugs are really people for whom immediate
gratification is important. That's what drug use is."

The system also helps close what can be gaps of months between a
failed urine test and a court sanction.

Boulder's success rate has made it a model for other districts
exploring problem-solving courts and has prompted Bailin to apply the
same gentler approach in a new DUI court and drug courts for families
and juveniles.

Positive Interactions

With few exceptions, hearings in Courtroom I feel more like counseling
sessions than criminal proceedings. Mulvahill's conversations with
offenders are open and intensely personal.

He asks one man about recent marital troubles. Another woman answers
questions about her father's alcoholism. Friendships, dating lives,
job prospects and parenting - nothing is off-limits in the open court.

"I worry when things start to pile up on you," Mulvahill tells a
father of five who has turned to a synthetic marijuana substitute
called Spice in the past. "You told me you were using that in part to
deal with stress."

For many offenders, this can be a rare positive interaction with an
authority figure.

Parole officers recommend, and the district attorney's office
approves, mostly chronic nonviolent offenders with histories of
substance abuse for admittance to the program.

The extra attention and rewards don't come without effort, as new
inductee David Neal, 39, has discovered.

Lanky, well spoken and marked with a tattoo across half his face, Neal
hurried out of the courthouse on a recent Tuesday morning and to one
of the more difficult aspects of his new program: a halfway house.

Offenders are frequently required to start the program in more
structured living environs.

Neal, who recently lost custody of his children because of a 22-year
addiction to heroin, also attends an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting and
a Narcotics Anonymous meeting every day.

He works out three times a week at a sports center designed for
recovering addicts. He attends multiple classes, one-on-one therapy
and group counseling every week. Like all participants, there are
frequent drug screenings.

Every other week, his counselors and therapists meet with his
probation officer, Mulvahill and other court authorities to discuss
Neal's progress and mental state.

"The structure and the way they all work together in your favor,
they're getting a fuller picture," Neal said. "It's pretty intense."

The Boulder court is fortunate. It receives robust $500,000-a-year
support from the County Commission, additional state funding and
outside grants and has benefited from $100,000 worth of donated
technical support to build a data-tracking system to measure its progress.

And it's received full backing from District Attorney Stan Garnett,
who has dedicated staff to help make the special courts work.

More than a third of the 292 people who have enrolled in the past four
years have washed out. But for those who graduate, only 15 percent
have reoffended within a year and four months, compared with the 43
percent recidivism rate among dropouts.

No Easy Way Out

A handful in Mulvahill's courtroom last month received stern warnings,
extra days of community service and threats that they'll be flunked
out and returned to jail for repeated failed urine samples.

There's no applause as David Hayzlip, 28, stands fidgeting and eyes
downcast before Mulvahill in a near-empty courtroom at the end of the
Tuesday docket.

Hayzlip, struggling to kick a heroin addiction that led to robbery and
domestic violence, has already come before Mulvahill once today,
telling the judge he hadn't used drugs recently. That wasn't true.

Because he lied, Hayzlip is sentenced to 180 days in a work-release
program, which means he'll lose much needed subsidized housing the
court helped arrange.

The blow is enough to make him consider leaving the program, he says,
as two deputies rise to lead him away in handcuffs.

But even the harshest punishment handed out that day came with an
encouraging word.

"You've done a lot of hard work in this program," Mulvahill reminds
him. "You can do this."