JUDGE RAISES GOOD QUESTION

Drug Treatment Programs In Prison Should Be On Par

A Baldwin County judge ordered the Alabama Department of Corrections to
create a drug treatment program for female prisoners equal to the one
available to male prisoners and now he is asking why the state has not
complied.

Baldwin County's district attorney has said he's not sure the circuit court
judge has authority to issue an order of this sort, something Judge Robert
Wilters did when he revoked a woman's probation after she tested positive
for illegal drugs. The judge ordered her to serve the 10-year sentence
handed down for her cocaine possession conviction and ordered the state to
start offering a treatment program comparable to the one for male
prisoners, the New Outlook Therapeutic Community program, within 30 days.

Prison officials say the same program is available to female inmates at
Tutwiler, the state's only women's prison, except that it lasts only six
months while the men's program lasts a year.

With no action from the state, the female inmate's lawyer has asked the
judge to get state officials to "show cause" as to why the order has not
been followed. The lawyer has asked that the inmate's sentence be changed
so she could enter a private recovery facility.

His goal is to get his client into treatment.

The judge's goal, Baldwin County prosecutor David Whetstone has indicated,
is to get the state to provide more programs for judges to include in
sentencing.

He suggests private lawsuits could be more effective in changing the prison
system than orders added to inmate sentences.

But the last thing the state needs is more lawsuits while it struggles to
meet the conditions set down by judges in two lawsuits stemming from
overcrowding.

Even if the legal system does not allow a circuit judge to tell the prison
system what to do through an order in an inmate's sentence, state officials
should take the order under advisement.

Given time, someone is likely to bring that private lawsuit over
inequitable drug treatment programs or other programs in the state's prisons.

Financial concerns make it hard to offer the same programs in every
facility, but the state should be very familiar with the costs of fighting
lawsuits by now and should be looking for ways to avoid more.