DRUG COURT IS SAVING LIVES AND MONEY; DON'T CUT IT

If you had a program that cuts crime, helps cure drug addicts and saves at
least $3 for every $1 it costs, what would you do with it? If you're the
N.C. General Assembly, you'd cut its funding.

We're talking about Drug Treatment Court. It costs about $2,500 to put an
offender through a year of drug court. It costs $25,000 to imprison someone
in North Carolina.

National research indicates such courts save three times as much as they
cost. Some estimates range much higher.

According to a report by the Administrative Office of the Courts, 18 percent
of drug court graduates are arrested again within a year, compared with 44
percent of a group of eligible drug court applicants who weren't admitted.

I sat in on Friday's session. Drug court isn't like other courts. Every
other Friday, offenders stand before Judge James Faison pouring out their
hearts. Many have been in trouble all their lives.

The judge reassures those on the right track and he metes out punishment to
others. A woman whose job search is lagging is ordered to spend the weekend
in jail. She'll return next weekend if she doesn't make five job contacts
during the week.

When the news is good, fellow participants applaud in support. It's hard to
believe you would find compassion and love among offenders in a New Hanover
County courtroom, but it's there.

Penny Craver, the Coastal Horizons Center employee who is the county drug
court coordinator, said most participants are repeat offenders. They agree
to thrice-weekly drug tests, nightly curfews and frequent attendance at
support-group meetings.

Glenda Walker, 40, says she spent 27 years as an addict, living in crack
houses to be close to her supply.

"I lived like the walking dead," she told me. She supported her habit
through prostitution.

After she was caught breaking into a house, she served a month in jail. She
entered drug court last November.

After a stint at the Hope Valley rehab center in Pilot Mountain, she's been
clean and sober for 120 days. Her eyes are lively and bright. She laughs a
lot.

Ms. Walker avoids her old neighborhood. "If I slip, I know I'm going to die
in the streets," she said.

Deborah Reilly, N.C. Drug Treatment Court manager, said the General Assembly
cut funding from $1.4 million to $800,000 last year. She said that at one
point, it was eliminated in the House but restored in the Senate. Some of
the shortfall has been made up by grants from the Governor's Crime
Commission, but those funds are uncertain from year to year. "Now funding is
so tight, we're on the brink of having to suspend some programs that are
working," she said.

She said Ms. Craver is a hard worker. While her counterparts across the
state may handle 20 or 25 cases, Ms. Craver oversees all 44 of the cases in
New Hanover County. She meets with each participant at least weekly. If it
seems illogical to cut funding to such a cost-effective program, it seems
downright heartless when you meet the participants. Friday was graduation
day for Christine Pegram. Her eyes were teary as Judge Faison read a
favorite poem to her about staying the course when times seem tough.

She drank heavily for years, she told me, and occasionally smoked crack
cocaine. A treatment program in 1999 didn't stick. She was arrested after
she got hold of a friend's checkbook and used it.

The mother of two and expecting a third, she opted for drug court. It was a
cause for celebration in drug court when her baby was born healthy and
drug-free last October.

"It was the right decision," she said. If she hadn't chosen drug court, she
said, "I'd probably be dead."

"There are very few people who come out of prison and say it saved their
lives," Ms. Craver observed.

Cut funding for this compassionate and effective program? We should expand
it.