PROGRAM HELPS INMATES CHANGE THEIR ATTITUDE

Classes, Counseling At Jail Aim to Let Them Reject Drugs

Keith Patrick graduated yesterday from the first phase of a yearlong
drug-abuse prevention program at the Fayette County Detention Center.

A step forward in a life of missteps. Still, his dark eyes hung heavy under
a mane of fuzzy, black plaits.

Sitting in a chair that seemed miniature compared to his size, he spoke of
the life he'd created -- filled with bad choices that now control him. He
said he enrolled in treatment to stay alive.

"When I was 20, I didn't care if I died or had to take somebody else's
life, as long as I got what I wanted," he said. "When you think about it,
that's not a life."

Patrick, 39, held at the detention center for robbery, also has spent time
in Michigan and New York jails.

Drugs have always been a part of his problems. He said he used heroin to
help cope with life. He said he sold drugs to buy cars and a home, which
police in Michigan eventually seized.

But over the past four months, Patrick said, he's begun crafting a new
purpose in life.

Along with 16 other inmates in the first part of the Hope Therapeutic
Program, he awoke most days at 8 a.m., made his bed and cleaned his shared
sleeping and bathroom areas. From 9 a.m. to 2 p.m., he attended classes
about why people choose drugs to solve their problems. From 2 p.m. to 4
p.m., he received counseling.

The second and third phases of the program will each last four more months.

When inmates in the program are released from prison, they'll be tracked
first at halfway houses and then in neighborhoods where they live, said
program coordinator Charles Smith. Ultimately, the Hope Center, the
program's administrator, wants to offer support and see how many stayed off
drugs, enrolled in higher education and got jobs.

The program costs $250,000 annually, funded mainly by the state. Inmates
must volunteer to enroll and cannot have been imprisoned for violent
crimes, said jailer Glenn Brown.

The program is the only intensive, in-prison treatment in Kentucky, Brown
said. It has taught inmates manners, made them more disciplined, and
encouraged them to change negative behavior, he added.

"I'd like to see the program double in size," he said.

So far, Patrick said, the program has been his lifeline.

One of his teachers agrees.

"He's working on changing his way of thinking and his attitude toward
life," said Susan Davis, also a program counselor. "He's taken younger guys
under his wing."

Patrick asked Davis to bring books to treatment so he and some other
inmates could help teach an 18-year-old in recovery to read and write, she
said.

Although inmates in treatment have experienced and caused their share of
pain, Davis said, they send a message to younger inmates.

"You can come from the bottom, and you can have done a lot of wrong
things," she said. "But you can still be useful, productive members of society."