DRUG COURT

Hampton Should Invest In What Works

Hampton made a major investment in public safety last week, deciding to
spend $1.8 million for pay raises for police and fire personnel.

The City Council was offered, at the same meeting, an opportunity to make
another investment in public safety - one that will cost far less and that
has the potential both to save money and to cut crime.

The Hampton Drug Court is, finally, ready to roll - as soon as the city of
Hampton can free up a small amount of money. Drug court is a special court
for nonviolent criminals charged with felony drug possession. It brings
together strict court supervision, intensive treatment, frequent drug
testing and a requirement that offenders get their lives in order by
working or going to school, supporting their families and being financially
responsible.

Hampton won a competitive $356,000 federal grant to develop its drug court,
only to find that the expected state match was a casualty of the budget
crisis. Local agencies have come up with much of the match by contributing
staff. The program has the support of Hampton judges, the police department
and the commonwealth's attorney, as well as the Hampton-Newport News
Community Services Board. They know that drug court has the potential to do
in Hampton what it has done in localities across the nation: cut crime,
using the immense power of court sanctions and rewards to get addicts into
effective treatment for the addiction that leads them to crime.

The council was pitched for funds to match the federal grant for the next
two years. This year the program needs only $33,000. Next year it needs
$69,079. Until Hampton makes a commitment, the court can't start using the
federal money.

The city should find the money. Drug court works. It will benefit not only
the participants - who will finally get involved in a program with the
power to break their addiction - but all the citizens of Hampton. How will
they benefit? Drug court saves money; it cuts the costs of law enforcement
and incarceration. The annual tab for an offender in drug court is about
$4,000 - compared to $20,000 or more if the offender is locked up. And any
time a citizen isn't a potential victim of a drug-related crime, he or she
benefits. Big time.

It's not a lot of money. Yes, as City Manager George Wallace pointed out,
there's the outside chance the tab could grow in the event the city has to
pick up the full cost when the federal grant runs out in a few years. But
only if the state doesn't come through, as it has for the other 13 drug
courts in Virginia.

So the City Council ought to come up with the match in the short run, so
drug court can start working in Hampton. And in the long run the region's
General Assembly representatives should work in Richmond to restore state
funding. State or local, it's money well spent.