DRUG COURTS WORRY FOR FUTURE

Funding In Jeopardy Despite Proven Results, N.C. Officials Complain

CHARLOTTE, N.C. (AP) -It was a graduation ceremony like many others. Ellie
Andrews got a diploma. Her 31/2-year-old daughter Abbey applauded and later
licked the icing off a celebration cupcake.

But the commencement speaker was a judge, who congratulated Andrews for
completing a nearly yearlong treatment program in Mecklenburg County's drug
court, where the course work included staying clean for more than 340 days
and never missing a court or counseling session.

"It was hard and time-consuming, but it was worth it," said Andrews, 30.
"It's much better than the alternative."

For Andrews, the alternative was a prison term of at least two years.
Instead, she ended up in the drug court, an option offered to some
nonviolent offenders charged with drug and alcohol-related crimes that
studies have found to be more effective than traditional drug-treatment
programs.

Despite the program's successes and the support of local and statewide
court officials, the drug courts in Mecklenburg County and more than a
dozen other judicial districts around the state are in peril as legislators
in Raleigh negotiate a budget for the next two years.

The Senate's version of the budget cuts nearly all of their operational
budget of just more than $1 million. Sen. Scott Thomas, D-Craven, one of
the budget writers, says the courts can be run using existing resources and
untapped federal drug treatment funds.

But without state money, Mecklenburg County officials say they'll have to
shut down their drug courts by Oct. 1. Even if the money is restored, there
remains a deep conflict between the locally run courts and the state
Administrative Office of the Courts, which is trying to standardize drug
court operations and spending across the state.

"I don't understand it," said Phil Howerton, the Mecklenburg District Court
judge who congratulated Andrews at her graduation last week. "Come on,
guys, this works. Why kill it?"

On that point - that drug courts work - there appears to be little debate.
Mecklenburg County's drug court, the state's first when it opened in 1996,
today handles more offenders than in any other in North Carolina and has
been held up as a national model.

A state study released in March reported 2004 graduation rates of 35
percent and a retention rate of more than 65 percent for all of North
Carolina's drug courts. Although that might appear low, national studies
have found that 80 percent to 90 percent of drug abusers don't even make it
to the one-year mark of traditional treatment programs.

Numerous studies of the nation's more than 1,100 drug courts show
participants are substantially less likely to be re-arrested or convicted
than nonparticipants. One recent national study, which included N.C.
drug-court graduates, found that 16.4 percent of 17,000 drug court
graduates were re-arrested and charged with a felony.

Estimates of money saved by drug courts, which can substitute for
incarceration and are aimed at preventing future arrests, trials and prison
time, vary, but supporters agree the long-term payoff is substantial.

"It works," said Rep. Becky Carney, D-Mecklenburg, who successfully
insisted the House budget include the money for the drug courts left out of
the Senate version. "Why would we try to stop something that has got a
proven track record?"

The question of state funding is before a conference committee working on a
compromise spending plan. Thomas, the senator who handles courts budgeting,
said he was ordered by the Senate's top budget writers to find spending
reductions beyond those recommended by Democratic Gov. Mike Easley. He said
the Senate's cuts don't mean the end of drug courts.

"It was our intent for the drug-treatment courts to continue to exist with
existing personnel," he said.

Howerton and others in Mecklenburg County, where the court system already
is overburdened, dismiss that logic. Drug courts here and elsewhere have
operated for years on a patchwork of local and state funding and federal
grants, many of which were designed to offer only one-time seed money.

Statewide, the 15 adult drug courts in 14 judicial districts around the
state - from Avery and Watauga counties in the mountains to New Hanover
County at the coast - served 1,002 participants in 2004.

Participants undergo at least a year of intensive group and individual
counseling. They are required to find work, pay $10 a week toward the costs
of their treatment and are monitored with drug and blood-alcohol tests.
They can graduate - with charges dismissed and probation terminated - only
if they have been clean for three to six months. For those not making the
grade, there are consequences. Before Andrews' graduation, Howerton sent
three participants to jail for one-or two-day stays, with one going
straight from the courtroom to the county lockup across the street. Two had
missed multiple treatment sessions. Another had tested positive for cocaine.