STATES EYE DRUG COURTS AS ALTERNATIVES TO PRISON

OKLAHOMA CITY -- Chris Althoff had nodded off in a drug-induced haze
with a video-game controller in his hand when a police SWAT team
raided his Norman home in 2004 and discovered thousands of illegal
prescription pills and other narcotics.

With a previous arrest for drug trafficking already on his record, the
23-year-old was facing the possibility of life in prison because of
the new charges.

"When I got arrested this last time, I knew it was over," Althoff
recalled. "The sad thing was, I didn't even care."

As a last resort, prosecutors agreed to let Althoff enter drug court,
an alternative to prison that many states across the country are using
to stem the rising flow of drug offenders into prison systems already
bursting at the seams.

Over the last three years, at least 22 states have developed
initiatives to slow the growth of the inmate population, the most
common of which are programs that divert drug offenders into treatment
rather than prison cells, according to a March study by the Sentencing
Project, a Washington, D.C.-based think-tank on criminal justice
policy issues.

Laws to divert drug offenders from prison have been established since
2004 in Connecticut, Hawaii, Indiana, Louisiana, Maryland, North
Dakota, Pennsylvania, Texas and Washington.

"We've seen a great deal of success in these diversion programs," said
Ryan King, a policy analyst who authored the study. "There are a
substantial number of drug arrests that occur every year in every
state and at the federal level. Even more important than that, they
tend to be the type of offense for which there are so many other
options available."

Althoff, now 25, says the rigorous drug court program that included
treatment, group therapy, drug testing, a curfew and participation in
a 12-step support group was exactly what he needed to help him turn
his life around.

"I couldn't do anything, really, except for drug court and work,"
Althoff said. "At first it was hard, but the alternative was much worse."

Now 25 and a recent graduate of the program, Althoff said he hasn't
used drugs or alcohol for more than 2 1/2 years. In that time, he's
started his own home remodeling company, gotten married, become a
father and completed his associate's degree at a local community college.

He regularly attends church, even plays drums in a church band, and
he's scheduled to begin this fall as a junior at the University of
Oklahoma, where he plans to pursue a degree in geophysics.

As drug court success stories began to make their way to the Oklahoma
Legislature, more lawmakers have adjusted their tough-on-crime stance
and supported the initiative, but that wasn't always the case, said
former state Sen. Dick Wilkerson, who authored the legislation to
create a statewide drug court program in the late 1990s.

A retired law enforcement officer who worked narcotics for years,
Wilkerson himself was used to busting drug offenders and sending them
to prison and admits he was skeptical of the idea at first.

But as lawmakers continued to implement harsh sentencing for drug
offenders in the 1980s and 1990s, the prison population in Oklahoma
swelled and its operating budget exploded. Wilkerson said he saw that
Colorado was having some success with drug court and thought it might
work in Oklahoma.