ADDICT-INMATES FIND HELP IN REHAB PROGRAM

The intensive therapy and job skills sessions that were mandated for
Anthony Edwards and others with addictions incarcerated at Sheridan
Correctional Center make them less likely to get into trouble again, state
officials will report Monday.

Edwards, now 33 and out of prison, had been behind bars six times on
charges of theft, drug possession and other crimes since he was 15. As he
became one of 270 inmates to go through Sheridan, the state's only prison
for those with addictions, in its first year, he made a promise to himself:
It would be the last time he saw the inside of a jail cell.

He said the one-on-one and group therapy that is required in the jail was
what he needed.

"It helped me just be able to identify who I was and identify the disease
that I had," Edwards said. "I thought the street life was the way of life,
gangs were the way of life and drugs were the way of life. My life was
unmanageable."

Since leaving jail in September, the Joliet man has maintained a job as a
warehouse worker, reunited with his two children, and is enrolled in
community college.

"If the program wasn't offered, I would still be out on the street thinking
that I could get different results from doing the same thing," said
Edwards, who will speak Monday at the facility's one-year anniversary ceremony.

Sheridan officials teamed with outside organizations to give inmates with
substance abuse problems the therapy and job skills they need to prevent
reincarceration, said Deanne Benos, assistant director of the Illinois
Department of Corrections.

On average, substance abusers are arrested between 9 and 16 times, Benos
said. "We are targeting a tough crowd. We are targeting people who have
significant histories."

According to a report on 150 inmates at Sheridan to be unveiled Monday, 12
percent were arrested again compared with 27 percent who had served in
other prisons. When inmates had at least seven months at Sheridan, none was
rearrested compared with 20 percent from other prisons serving that same
amount of time, said David Olson, professor of criminal justice at Loyola
University. He conducted the research for the Illinois Criminal Justice
Information Authority, a state agency that analyzes crime statistics and
trends.

"It tells us clearly that it's working," Olson said.

Christy Visher, principal research associate at the Urban Institute, said
though the latest numbers are promising, there is a need to make sure the
community is involved. If offenders return to their homes without help from
jobs or treatment, they may fall into their bad habits, Visher said.

"I think the project is really combining a lot of what we know works in one
place," Visher said. "I see this as a model for the rest of the country."

The aim is to house 1,700 men sentenced to prison on drug-related crimes,
said Michael Rothwell, Sheridan's warden. It would make the facility the
largest prison dedicated exclusively to drug offenders in the country,
state officials said.

The majority of offenders hail from Cook County, in particular Chicago.
There are nearly 1,000 people incarcerated at Sheridan.

As part of their prison stint, they must attend nearly 50 hours of drug and
alcohol counseling and other therapy sessions each week, Rothwell said.

A 33-year-old West Side inmate said the program helped him focus on his
addiction. He has been in prison five separate times on drug charges since
he was 18, and the last time he was drug-free before his recent stint at
Sheridan was in 1997, he said.

"If I had the same thing the first time I was in jail I wouldn't have been
back," said the man, who asked not to be identified.

He is taking classes to prepare him for job interviews, to work on his
resume and to learn to use computers. And the drug therapy is intense, he said.

"They are teaching me about recovery, changing the way I think. I was crazy
out there," he said. "I'm tired, I don't want to do this [come back to
jail] no more."

A 23-year-old inmate said he almost wishes he had been sentenced for a
longer term.

"It sounds crazy but sometimes I wish I could stay longer, just to get my
GED," he said.

At a recent group therapy session inside the common area of a prison
building on the sprawling compound in LaSalle County, about 16 men in
prison uniforms sat in a circle on benches and chairs as guards looked on
from a desk behind a Plexiglas partition.

A social worker mediated the discussion, which focused on how the men, many
with gang tattoos on their thick arms and necks, could resolve conflicts
with each other without violence. They sat under colorful signs like "Think
B4 U Act" that reminded them to carefully consider their actions.

"Poor impulse, that's what got me here in the first place," said an inmate,
who seemed a little older than the majority who were in their 20s.

Another inmate, who had quarreled with the first man during their time
living on the same floor of the jail, said they needed to work out ways to
deal with their problems.

"It could escalate to where it becomes detrimental," the second inmate
said, adding: "Even like this program, we don't like it all but we know
it's the best thing for us now."