PRISON POPULATION RISES AS ALTERNATIVES, TREATMENT PROGRAMS WITHER

NEW LONDON, Conn. -- Over the years, whenever Putnam police spotted Michael
Peckham's car on the road at night, they'd reach for their lights and sirens.

More often than not, Peckham said, he was drunk behind the wheel.

The 37-year-old has been arrested for drunken driving more times than he
can remember. He has spent about four of the last 10 years behind bars. In
the past he had a simple plan upon his release from prison: Go out and have
a beer.

This time he hopes things will be different.

During his current incarceration Peckham, who also used cocaine, received
prison-run substance abuse treatment for the first time. He was released in
September to the supervision of Fellowship House, a residence in Groton
designed to help offenders re-enter society.

People who work with drug-addicted defendants and inmates say treatment for
people like Peckham greatly improves their chances for long-term recovery
and reduces the likelihood they will return to prison.

Connecticut faces a major budget crisis, with a deficit in the fiscal year
that begins Tuesday estimated at $1 billion. Republican Gov. John G.
Rowland and Democrats and Republicans in the General Assembly have thus far
failed to reach agreement on a new tax-and-spending plan.

Even though studies show programs offering treatment and alternatives to
prison save money, the various departments that deal with defendants and
convicts have cut staff and trimmed funding.

Legislators, drug counselors, attorneys, judges and prison officials say
the cuts will expand the prison population and increase costs.

The state's Judicial Branch is just one agency making cuts:

- - In August the Judicial Branch closed its drug courts, which provided an
alternative to prison for nonviolent offenders.

- - In January six bail commissioners - whose job it was to find alternatives
to incarceration for people awaiting trial in prison - were laid off. The
program no longer exists.

- - Only 25 of 70 probation officers who either retired or were laid off
since January have been replaced. The remaining officers have higher
caseloads and less time to consider alternatives to prison for people who
have violated probation because of drug use and other infractions.

"In my opinion, by default we end up incarcerating too many people whose
main problem is drug and alcohol dependency," said state Rep. Mike Lawlor,
a Democrat from East Haven who is co-chairman of the legislature's
Judiciary Committee.

"The system is really overwhelmed with problems it wasn't designed to
solve," he said.

State agencies estimate that 80 percent of the roughly 80,000 people in
prison or under court supervision have drug, alcohol or a combination of
addictions that were a direct or contributing factor in their crimes.

A 1997 report by the state's Law Revision Commission found that 69 percent
of inmates studied were rearrested within three years. Of those rearrested,
22 percent were sent back to prison.

Academic and legal research shows a clear connection between substance
abuse treatment and reduced recidivism, or the relapse into criminal
behavior. In turn, reductions in repeat arrests and incarcerations lead to
considerable savings for Connecticut taxpayers, according to the research,
including a 2002 Brown University study on the cost effectiveness of
substance abuse treatment in Connecticut prisons.

As of mid-June the state's prison population of 19,108 was near an all-time
high. The Department of Correction estimates per-prisoner costs at $72 a
day. The state will spend about $500 million - more than 3 percent of the
$13 billion state budget - on inmates for the fiscal year ending Monday.

Connecticut's response to the burgeoning prison population has focused more
on expanding capacity and sending prisoners out of state than on
rehabilitative measures.

Since 1997 the state has issued more than $96 million in bonds to build new
prisons and expand existing ones. The state has also shipped 500 inmates to
a prison in Virginia, and Rowland has proposed sending 1,500 more out of
state to save the state money.

Legislators said last week they might support the idea - if there was also
money set aside to reform Connecticut's prison system.

Led by Rep. Bill Dyson, D-New Haven, a group of lawmakers are pushing a
"Building Bridges" plan that would make more inmates eligible for parole,
increase drug treatment for criminals and provide alternatives to prison
for parole and probation violators. The plan could save the state $50
million, according to two consultants hired by the legislature.

The proposal's fate is uncertain. A bill with similar proposals died in the
regular session that ended June 5.

Between fiscal years 1997 and 2003 the Correction Department budgeted
roughly $50 million for prison-based treatment programs and halfway houses,
according to the department's estimates. Since 2000, that spending has
fallen each year.

The hodgepodge of agencies responsible for court-supervised and inmate
populations complicates efforts to maintain and coordinate funding for
substance abuse treatment.

The departments - the Judicial Branch, the Department of Correction, the
Board of Parole and the Department of Mental Health and Addiction Services
- - have independent budgets, increasing the possibility for insular
decision-making, said state Rep. Bob Farr, R-West Hartford.

If programs are cut in the Judicial Branch, higher costs are eventually
borne by the Correction Department due to an increased prison population,
he said.

Political myopia also plagues the system. Legislators, with an eye trained
on upcoming elections, are better at putting out fires than preventing
them, said Farr, who is on the Judiciary Committee.

With the crime rate in Connecticut near historic lows, there is little
political incentive to put more inmates out on the street. Legislators who
promote alternatives, said state Rep. Wade Hyslop, D-New London, risk
appearing "soft on crime."

The opportunities to rehabilitate addicted convicts and save taxpayer money
exist well before offenders pass through the prison gates.

The Judicial Branch is responsible for defendants throughout their court
proceedings. It also oversees probation. With help from DMHAS, the branch
has access to private and public treatment centers for defendants and
convicts with drug and alcohol problems.

Lawrence Dorr, 29, of Canterbury, is among those who have received private
treatment paid for by the state.

Police arrested Dorr in December 2002 for drunken driving and other crimes.
Prior to that arrest, he spent more than two years in prison for drunken
driving-related offenses. One arrest occurred after he led state police on
an 18-mile, high-speed chase on Interstate 95.

After his most recent run-in Dorr told his probation officer he wanted
help. Along with alcohol, Dorr had begun abusing Oxycontin, a powerful
narcotic pain reliever.

Within two months the officer found him a bed at Lebanon Pines, a private
treatment center in Lebanon, and Dorr was able to go there instead of prison.

"There's not a whole lot of positive behavior in prison," Dorr said. At
Lebanon Pines, he said, he can relate to people who have lived with sobriety.

"If you stay here," he added, "you're serious about it."

The state's first drug court opened in New Haven in July 1996. By the time
the Judicial Branch shuttered the courts in August of this year the program
had expanded to four locations.

The system was open to defendants charged with drug possession but not a
violent crime or the sale of drugs. A defense attorney and a prosecutor
negotiated a prison sentence for each offender. If the person agreed to
attend a 12- to 15-month program requiring drug tests, court appearances,
job training and education, the prison sentence would be suspended after
its completion.

The country's first drug court opened in Dade County, Fla., in 1989.
Estimates on the cost savings of drug courts vary from state to state. But
in a 1999 nationwide review of drug courts the federal Department of
Justice found the recidivism rate among defendants who at least tried the
program ranged from 5 percent to 28 percent. Those who completed it had
re-arrest rates of 4 percent. Recidivism for inmates with drug charges who
did not go to drug courts was well over 50 percent, the study found.

Jim Chase, 63, a public defender and recovering alcoholic, helped to set up
the New Haven court and worked there until its closing. He estimates
Connecticut spent $10,000 per defendant involved in the program.

"Take 70 people now who would not be in prison, you're costing the taxpayer
millions of dollars right now," he said. "You can't justify it economically."

The Judicial Branch's jail re-interview program started in December 1997 to
ease prison overcrowding. Bail commissioners assessed people awaiting trial
in prison because they could not post bond. The goal was to release as many
as appropriate to one of several places, including relatives' homes and
outpatient and inpatient treatment centers.

The program placed nearly 5,000 people during its five years, according to
the Office of Legislative Research. Although some of those alternatives
cost money, the Department of Mental Health and Addiction Services
estimates the program saved 146 beds a day in Connecticut prisons, or
roughly $3.8 million annually.

Treating those people at Lebanon Pines would be cheaper. The facility
estimates it costs $55 a day to care for a resident; at that rate treating
146 inmates would cost the state $2.9 million a year.

Funding for beds in alternative programs falls woefully short. Last year
DMHAS found all 340 state-funded beds filled with 229 pretrial defendants
waiting.

This kind of backup leads many defendants to opt for immediate prison
sentences rather than wait for treatment, the report states.

"These guys can do math," said William Carbone, executive director of the
Court Support Services Division. An inmate who can serve eight months in
prison or wait several months for a 12-month treatment program will likely
take the sentence, he said.

The lack of beds can have other costly results. It forces probation
officers to send more violators back to prison when drug treatment is what
they need, said Bob Coyne, a chief probation officer in New London. More
than a quarter of people jailed for violation of probation committed drug
and alcohol offenses, such positive drug tests, according to the Office of
Legislative Research.

Coyne lost four officers in the January state layoffs. The caseloads of his
12 remaining officers have gone from fewer than 200 to as high as 260, he
said. The Judicial Branch considers an optimum caseload average to be 100
probationers per officer. By the end of the month, the statewide average
will be 175, a department spokesman said.

Under the stress of too much work, Coyne said, the officers have little
time or incentive to consider alternatives to jail for probation violators.

"There's nobody in state government who can toss more taxpayer money than a
probation officer," Lawlor said.

Once in prison, an inmate's chances of receiving substance abuse treatment
are tenuous at best.

After his last arrest in August 2000 Peckham said he was tired of prison,
the hangovers and the mess he had made of his life. Though he never injured
anyone while driving drunk and high, he ruined a marriage, was estranged
from his children and lost a number of jobs.

During the many plea negotiations he was involved in over the years,
Peckham said, treatment was never mentioned. During his latest
incarceration, the Department of Correction decided to send him to the DWI
unit at the Bergin Correctional Institution in Storrs.

The 2002 Brown University study suggests that Peckham and state taxpayers
might have benefited if he had undergone treatment in prison much sooner.
The study found that a moderate-intensity program reduces a participant's
recidivism by more than 18 percent in the year following release. Among
those who complete treatment, each avoided prison sentence saves the state
nearly $19,000, the study found.

As a prisoner approaches the end of a sentence, two things can happen: The
inmate can be moved to a halfway house or ride out the time behind bars.

In the mid-1990s the Department of Correction tightened the rules on
eligibility for halfway houses. To be eligible, convicts must have at least
applied for a prison-run substance abuse program, if not attended one.

Since that change prisoners have sought treatment in far greater numbers.
From fiscal years 1997 to 2002, nearly 5,000 more inmates have requested
treatment - a 20 percent increase, according to department statistics.

Funding for the drug programs has remained flat, however. By last year,
prison-run programs treated 34 percent fewer inmates than in 1997,
according to department statistics.

State funding cuts extend to halfway houses, too. In the fiscal year ending
Monday the DOC budget for halfway houses was $2.5 million. That represents
a 30 percent drop since 2000.

Lawlor finds the state's handling of drug-addicted inmates maddening. It
all boils down, he said, to a question posed to him by a friend.

"Who would you rather meet in a dark alley?" Lawlor said. "A person who
just completed a year in rehab or someone who just spent a year in prison?"