COUNTY TO URGE STATE TO CONTINUE SUBSTANCE ABUSE TREATMENT PROGRAM

Jimmy Thornton and Gary Connolly asked for, and got, the Sampson County
Board of Commissioners' support of a program that the state has said it
might stop funding.

Thornton, chairman of the county's Criminal Justice Partnership Advisory
Board, and Connolly, director of Duplin-Sampson Mental Health's TASC
(Treatment Alternatives to Street Crimes) program, told commissioners the
Department of Correction (DOC) is considering as an option stopping funding
to the Criminal Justice Partnership Program (CJPP), under which programs
like TASC operate. They asked commissioners to endorse the idea of keeping
the program funded.

Both said the program, begun three years ago, has been successful. And,
said Thornton, there is concern that what he is convinced is a successful
program, one which he said is more cost-efficient than sending offenders to
prison, might be stopped. "I think we in Sampson County have been leaders
in areas where CJPP (Criminal Justice Partnership Program) is concerned,"
said Thornton.

Normally, the county has been receiving about $75,000 annually in CJPP
funding. These funds have been allocated to an intensive outpatient
substance abuse treatment program, TASC, for intermediate criminal
offenders. The stated goal of this community-based corrections plan and the
CJPP program is to reduce recidivism by offering alcohol and/or drug
treatment to offenders instead of incarceration.

"I think we have one of the best programs in the state," Connolly said. He
called commissioners' attention to a letter he wrote to state Rep. Phillip
Baddour urging him to vote against eliminating funding to CJPP. He notes in
the letter that the Department of Corrections has been asked by Gov. Mike
Easley to cut its budget and that the DOC's budget reduction plan is set up
in agency reduction options starting at seven percent and going to 11
percent. Connolly wrote that elimination of $8.6 million in CJPP funding is
listed as the eighth item in the seven percent section of the reduction
plan and, if adopted, would become effective July 1.

Connolly maintained that CJPP not only pays for itself but also saves the
DOC millions of dollars every year in prison incarceration fees. In his
letter, Connolly wrote, "Last year CJPP saved North Carolina taxpayers
$35,226,491.80 for incarceration costs in prison above the cost of the CJPP
grant."

He added, "Criminal Justice Partnership Programs working in close
conjunction with TASC is the most successful method of offender management
in the state." He continued, "The bottom line for Sampson County is that if
the program goes away there's not going to be anything to replace it. . . .
The people we help keep sober are not in the community committing new crimes."