DRUGS, ALCOHOL PAVE HIGHWAY TO INCARCERATION

Many paths lead to prison.

Sometimes, whole lives seem to point there, a long nightmare of
disadvantage and squalor. Other people throw away their opportunities
with bad choices or impulsive behavior.

Either way, drugs and alcohol speed the route to incarceration and
later homelessness.

Muriel Martin, acting supervisor of the Richmond Parole Unit,
estimates that 75 percent of her office's parolees' cases relate to
underlying substance abuse problems.

Other agents set the rates even higher, as much as 80 or 90 percent of
their clients.

"They all have it. It just depends on what point they stop, or want to
stop," said Leslie Robinson, a Richmond parole agent for the last five
years.

The least complicated parolees are young dealers who don't use drugs
themselves, Robinson said.

"All they like is the money. It's easy to get them a job, because they
know how to talk to people. They can hustle. ...

"The ones that use are the problem. They recognize the addiction, but
they don't want to admit it. They say, 'Oh, I'm just a weekend user.'"

Parole agent Kevin Golson, who grew up in Richmond, has seen the
community's drug problems passed down to a new generation.

"Most of these guys come from dysfunctional families. Their parents
are crack addicts, their grandparents raised them, or they kind of
raised themselves. It seems like it never really changes."

Addiction, crime and poverty are sometimes so intertwined, it's hard
to tell where one ends and the next begins. Once a person is convicted
of a drug-related felony, he or she becomes forever ineligible for
services such as welfare, subsidized housing and certain college
loans. Even food stamps are forbidden -- though access will soon
expand in California thanks to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who
recently signed a bill restoring food stamps to nonviolent drug
offenders who complete a recovery program.

Substance abuse treatment can break the cycle, but it's hard to find a
bed in a long-term inpatient center, even for desperate cases.

"It's not cost-effective to incarcerate people for these kind of
offenses when they actually need help," says Martin.

Martin remains hopeful about the long-term impact of Proposition 36,
which requires that offenders convicted of nonviolent drug possession
be sent to treatment instead of prison.

Recovery Not a Sure Thing

Even for those who get into a program, recovery can be
hard.

Living at the Salvation Army's Oakland rehabilitation center this
June, Richmond native Michael Ashby was proud to be working 40 hours a
week for the program and optimistic about his chances of staying clean.

"I have a choice now," said Ashby, now 40. "At first I thought the
only choice I had was to use."

Articulate and charming, Ashby imagined as a child someday becoming a
lawyer or a doctor.

Instead, he used and dealt drugs, especially crack cocaine, for two
decades. His career began at 18, when his family lived between two
dealers in Richmond's Easter Hill. Customers would mistakenly knock on
his door all day.

"I said, 'This is lucrative,'" he remembers. "I've got to learn how to
do this."

In four months, he earned $20,000. At first, he cared only about the
money; eventually, the crack became what mattered.

Jail and prison didn't bring Ashby sobriety, just slowed his habit. In
January, he was assigned to a Prop. 36 probation officer who helped
him find first outpatient treatment, then the live-in Oakland program.

"I'm not going to count days, I'm going to count years," Ashby
promised. "The rest of my life I'm living clean. The only way they're
going to know how long I was clean is when my life ended."

A few days later, counselors put Ashby on restriction for breaking a
rule. A week later, he left the program. Still determined to stay
sober, Ashby stopped by to see his mentors at the West County Resource
Center. But after a few weeks he drifted away, and acquaintances
haven't seen him since.

'Sometimes It Takes Losing Everything'

Despite nine years of sobriety, 46-year-old Hugh Harrington endured a
fresh episode of homelessness this September, after a roommate
situation turned sour. Harrington spent several weeks sleeping at the
Bay Area Rescue Mission, until a friend from church helped him find a
landscaping job and an apartment.

For Harrington, a 1976 graduate of Concord High, the road to ruin
begin with marijuana in the eighth grade. A bunch of friends were
smoking it, and he thought why not try. Then LSD, cocaine, and
eventually, his drug of choice, methamphetamine.

Everyone who loved him tried to stop him. Nothing worked.

"In my heart of hearts, even though I knew where it would end up, I
didn't stop," remembers Harrington. "You have to see it. Sometimes, it
takes losing everything."

Harrington says his drug abuse never landed him to prison. But he did
sacrifice the family home in Concord, which he inherited after caring
for his dying father there. Harrington lost not only the house but
everything in it, even the family photos.

The guilt still eats at him.

"It's like having your guts ripped out, and you could have prevented
it," he says. "A lot of relatives came through that house. Christmases
were huge. No matter what happened as kids, we could always go there."