DRUG TREATMENT CENTER OFFERS HOPE

Kwajalein Morgan Couldn't Stay Off Drugs.

Her husband left her for doing them. She quit a good job so that she could
do more. She just couldn't stop tootin' cocaine and drinking beer.

"I wanted to be clean, but I couldn't," said Morgan, 45, of Macon. "It's hard."

Feb. 27, 1997, Morgan said, she got busted for holding drugs for someone
else. She spent five years in prison and stayed clean for another two and a
half years after that.

She thought she was strong enough to hang with the same friends and stay
clean. But she was wrong.

"I got put back because I couldn't keep a clean stream," Morgan said. "I
couldn't stay off of drugs. So they kept on working with me and working
with me. ... They were fixing to put me back inside."

What corrections officials did, however, was enroll Morgan in a pilot
"supervision and behavior intervention" program. She told her story
Thursday, the day state and local leaders held a grand opening for a "day
reporting center" here.

There are five Day Reporting Centers in the state. A $2.4 million grant
from the state Criminal Justice Coordinating Council and a 25 percent match
from the state helped build and staff these centers.

In Macon, it's a 7,400-square-foot building with skylights, lime-green
walls, at least a dozen computers and "group rooms" to teach educational
and job skills, morality, self-esteem and other decision-making tools.

Here's why:

. Officials say that about 600,000 people will be released from prison
nationwide each year, no matter what, and that they'd rather turn those
offenders into productive citizens than to continue having an average of
about a third of them re-committing crime and returning to prison.

. With one in every 15 Georgians under some kind of correctional
supervision, officials say, these centers will reduce the need to build
prisons. They say it costs about $45 per day to house someone in a state
prison and only about $12 a day to rehabilitate them here. An Atlanta-based
center alone has saved more than $2.5 million in prison construction costs,
according to a news release from the state Department of Corrections and
State Board of Pardons and Paroles.

Participants in the program, all of whom are considered non-violent and an
estimated 90 percent of whom are addicted to drugs or alcohol, are referred
by a judge or the parole board. These are people who have not succeeded
under conventional supervision and were snatched on their way to prison.

Macon center administrator Joe Baden said that 18 people have entered the
program since it began last month, and only one has dropped out. It's not
easy. Although no one spends the night, participants take part in a strict
regimen of drug-testing and class-taking. The program also requires support
from friends or relatives.

Baden said one of the toughest challenges for participants is getting them
to change the way they make decisions, starting with getting them to admit
the effects of their wrongdoings. He said some have asked to go back to
prison rather than continue with the program, but ultimately they have
become connected to the counselors and the others in their group.

"They give you an opportunity to express yourself and discuss what you've
gone through and the reason for you doing what you did," said 25-year-old
Anthony Cheatham of Macon, "instead of just sentencing you and sending you
off."

Cheatham said he's been clean for two months and is looking forward to
making up for all the family holidays and commitments he missed while in
prison.

Morgan said she's working on rebuilding the trust of family and friends.
And, now drug-free, she said she wants to start her own business of
stripping and waxing floors.

"If you have a problem, you need handle it the right way: Get out and get
you a job instead of trying to find the easy way out every time," Morgan
said. "I want to get myself back."