PRISON SYSTEM ON WRONG TRACK

In Orange County in 2000 there were almost 8,000 felony drug convictions.
That may sound like a lot -- that is crime at the rate of 372 per 100,000
people of the population -- but the number has dropped by 3,000 since 1994.

In 1994, Orange County's drug convictions reached their peak at a little
over 10,500. But those numbers have been declining steadily since 1995 when
an experimental specialty court was instituted for convicted narcotics
felons. Drug court was designed primarily as an outpatient program for
people who do not function appropriately in society, according to the
findings of an Orange County grand jury.

In Orange County, felons who were admitted to drug court in 1997 and 1998
were found to have 17 percent re-arrest rate in the year following release
compared to a 35 percent re-arrest rate for people just on probation. In Los
Angeles County, it was found that the re-arrest rate for felons receiving no
kind of diversion or treatment was 51 percent. That number dropped to 24
percent when the felons participated in drug court.

The amazing part about drug court is that even though there is increased
supervision for the participants, five people can participate in the program
for the cost of incarcerating one person for one year. Maybe now
California's government, in spite of our last two governors' penchants for
the prison industrial complex, can get everybody in the legal system back on
track. Maybe someday prison and jail really will be for the murderers and
rapists and child abusers, instead of being full of drug addicts and people
with emotional or chemical imbalances.

Now Orange County is going a step further. Since 1995, two other programs
have emerged in the justice system as an option for the straight drug
addict. A dual-diagnosis court and Prop 35, renamed PC1210, treat
non-violent, drug-related and mental health issues.

The county is now proposing a mental health court especially suited for
people who don't have drug charges but who are obviously unable to control
their own actions without help. Modeled after successful courts in San
Bernadino and Riverside Counties, established in 1997 and 2001 respectively,
the court is an attempt to keep mentally unstable persons from slipping
through the cracks as criminals.

This court is a needed step in the pursuit of justice. Only when our jails
and prisons are no longer full of people who have a clinically recognized
problem, whether it is drugs or a mental illness, will justice truly be
being served. This should be recognized from the lowest local level as high
as it can go, and although the program failed to get federal funding the
support of the people who have seen this system work could carry it through.
Maybe someday people will get all the help they need.