TWELVE MORE COUNTIES ADVOCATE DRUG TREATMENT PROGRAM FOR CONVICTS

TROY - Twelve more counties have signed on to a program allowing
prosecutors to send some drug offenders to treatment programs instead
of prison, Gov. George E. Pataki announced Monday.

The expansion of the "Road to Recovery" program comes after another
year in which negotiations failed to reform the harshest aspects of
the Rockefeller drug laws. One feature of reformed drug sentencing
laws would be to send more nonviolent, drug-addicted offenders to
treatment instead of jail.

Pataki said "Road to Recovery" is modeled after a program first tried
in the early 1900s by Brooklyn District Attorney Charles Hynes. It was
later adopted in the other four New York City boroughs. Last year,
pilot drug treatment diversion programs were tried in five counties
outside the city: Monroe, Dutchess, Warren, Washington and broom.

State officials said prosecutors in those five counties will continue
their programs and that district attorneys in 12 other counties have
applied for funding to try their own " Road to Recovery" programs:
Erie, Nassau, Oneida, Onondaga, Orange, Niagara, Rensselaer, Rockland,
Schenectady, Suffolk, Weatchester and Saratoga.

About 1,200 people are currently enrolled in : Road to Recovery" or
its counterpart in New York City, called "DTAP." About 180 defendants
are expected to get treatment in the next year under the expansion of
"Road to Recovery" said Lynn Rasic, a spokeswoman for the Pataki
administration on criminal justice issues.

Pataki said $2.8 million in state money will be provided to help fund
the program. He said other prosecutors may sign up later after waiting
"to see the cost, to see the funding streams and also to see the
effectiveness" of "Road to Recovery" programs elsewhere.

Under the program, qualified defendants must complete 12 months of
what Pataki called intensive treatment.

Charges against defendants are held in abeyance as they undergo
treatment, and if they can't complete the regimen, the charges can be
imposed and the defendants sent to prison.