DRUG COURTS GIVE ADDICTS GOOD REASON TO STAY CLEAN

ALBANY - The threat of doing time in state prison keeps Mike Kelsey going
to Drug Court in Albany County.

"I'm looking at 2 to 6 years so there's a motivation for me to stay in Drug
Court and the [substance abuse] treatment," said Kelsey, who broke into a
house and stole $300 so he could feed his heroin addiction.

Kelsey, a 35-year-old Albany man, is in his third month of the Albany
County Drug-Court program. He's one of a growing number of people convicted
of non-violent, drug-related crimes who are entering and sticking with
drug-court programs.

Retention rates are a key sta-tistic in measuring the success of drug-court
programs.

Statewide, 72 percent of the people who enter drug-court programs stick
with them for a year, according to the state Office of Court
Administration. Nationally, the one-year retention rates for people in drug
courts is 60 percent.

Because they seem to work, drug courts are gaining in popularity here in
New York state and nationally.

In the Capital Region, Albany, Rensselaer, Schenectady and Fulton counties
have drug-court programs. In Saratoga County, District Attorney James A.
Murphy III said last week that the county will have a drug court up and
running by next January.

And last week, Schenectady County officials announced they had won a
$436,696 grant for their 1-year-old drug-court program. The money will
allow them to double the number of people who enroll in Drug Court in
Schenectady County.

Because Schenectady's Drug Court is new, there are no statistics to show
whether the program is keeping people off drugs and out of trouble with the
law - the two main goals of the program.

Last-Ditch Alternative

Rather than sending drug and alcohol abusers to prison for committing
crimes related to their addiction, drug courts offer alternative sentences.

The programs cost less than prison or jails where the defendants would be
warehoused, supporters say.

The defendants plead guilty to a crime and are sentenced. In Kelsey's case,
it was a felony burglary charge and Albany County Court Judge Stephen
Herrick sentenced him to 2 to 6 years in state prison earlier this year.

But Kelsey - and other drug court participants - remain free as long as
they stay drug free, out of trouble and participate in court ordered programs.

The average drug-court defendant facing felony charges spends a minimum of
12 to 18 months in the program. At the end of that time, their conviction
stands but they will not have spent time behind bars.

Since New York's first drug court opened in 1995, the program has continued
to grow. There are now more than 40 drug courts in 27 counties. New York
state's top judge, Chief Judge Judith S. Kaye, said that there will at
least one drug court in each of the state's 62 counties.

Nationwide statistics have shown that drug-court participants are far less
likely to commit new crimes than defendants placed on probation or released
from prison.

Herrick, the judge in charge of felony drug-court cases in Albany County,
said he wasn't thrilled about the idea of special-treatment courts for
people who commit drug-related crimes.

"Originally when I found out about these in 1998, I wasn't a supporter but
I owed Dennis Foley, the county's Stop-DWI coordinator, a favor and he
asked me to take a look at them," Herrick said. "When I started reading
about them [drug courts] and the disease of addiction, I started to lean in
the other direction."

On Friday afternoon, Herrick ran his weekly drug-court session for 13
felons, including Kathleen Conway, the first to enter Albany County's
felony Drug Court in February. She and the others must report to court
every Friday afternoon, when Herrick reads their weekly progress reports
and questions them.

"Coming to court every week helps remind me that I am facing 2 to 7 years
if I don't make it," said Conway, a 22-year-old Albany woman who pleaded
guilty to violating probation twice.

She got in trouble two years ago when she stole someone's checks and
identification and cashed them. Conway, like Kelsey, was a heroin addict
and committed her crime to get money to buy drugs. She pleaded guilty to
attempted forgery and was sentenced to probation and ordered to get drug
treatment.

Conway dropped out of two programs, which violated the terms of her
probation, and she was facing felony charges and state prison time. Now she
is living in the Bridge Center, a drug-rehabilitation center in Schenectady.

"This is the most trouble I've ever been in. This is my bottom but the drug
court is working for me," said Conway, who says she hopes to go to fashion
school and own a clothing store someday. "I am almost five months clean and
proud of it."

Proof Lacking

Despite the almost universal praise for drug court, there are few numbers
to show whether the programs work. New York has yet to conduct a statewide
study of retention and recidivism rates among the participants. The reason:
Many, like Schenectady's Drug-Court program, are too young or too small to
have meaningful statistics.

But the federal and state governments are paying for a $375,000 study of
four upstate and four New York City drug courts.

"A lot of people are interested in the bottom line and that's what we hope
our study will show," said Michael Rempel, research director for the Center
for Court Innovation, which is conducting the two-year study with the state
Office of Court Administration.

None of the Capital Region counties with drug courts will be a part of the
study. Rempel, who is 14 months into his research, says the counties
selected are representative of many counties and should show basic
drug-court successes or failures.

"By looking at those numbers, it gives you a good indication of how
long-term outcomes are likely to look." Rempel said. "These have emerged as
benchmarks in looking at the success of drug courts."

The statistics will be updated as the study continues and won't be
finalized until next year. The preliminary numbers show that drug courts in
New York have lower dropout rates than similar courts across the country.

As of April, none of the eight courts being analyzed showed one-year
retention rates of less that 60 percent - which is the national average.
The eight upstate courts are in Suffolk County, Syracuse, Lackawana and
Ithaca, and downstate in Brooklyn, Bronx, Manhattan and Queens.

No recidivism rates have been calculated yet, Rempel said.

Highest Rate

Rensselaer County Drug Court - one of the first in the state - began in
1997 and has a higher one-year retention rate than any of the courts in the
study.

Mickey Cleary, the drug-court coordinator for the Third Judicial District,
which includes Rensselaer and Albany counties, said that 86 percent of the
52 felons who entered drug court stuck with it for at least a year. Only
six failed.

Troy City Court, where there is a Drug Court for misdemeanor defendants,
has a lower success rate. Of the 75 participants, 24 failed which meant a
68-percent retention rate.

That trend mirrors state and national drug courts where the people charged
with misdemeanor crimes punishable by a year or less in jail were more
likely to drop out.

"You can go to drug court on a felony and you may go away for 2 to 7 years
if you drop out," Cleary said. "If they fail, the hammer - jail time - is
much greater than in local courts where someone may face 4 months. A lot of
times, they will put up their hands and quit."

"I don't know about the drug-court program in general but I know it's going
to work for me," said Kelsey, who has been drug-free for three months.
"I've got four kids and [me] being in prison is not going to do them any good."

Kelsey said the possible prison term if he fails drug court is motivating
him to stick with the program.

In Albany County, the misdemeanor and felony drug-court statistics have not
been kept separately.

Since misdemeanor drug courts opened there in January 2000, and felony drug
courts earlier this year, 99 people have participated and 26 of those
failed, giving the county a 73-percent retention rate.

"All of these courts are very active and all of them are doing well," said
State Supreme Court Judge Thomas W. Keegan, who is seated in Albany and
also administrative judge of the Third Judicial District.

There are more than 750 drug courts running and 500 in the planning stages
in the nation, according to the National Association of Drug Court
Professionals, based in Alexandria, Va.

Nationwide, more than 300,000 people have entered drug courts. In New York,
12,666 people have participated in them since drug courts began, according
to the Office of Court Administration.

The number of new participants in drug court in New York jumped by 23
percent between October 2000 and Sept 2001, from 2,653 to 3,262.