ALTERNATIVE TO PRISON PROGRAM THREATENED

Adam Hollowell was strung out on cocaine, broke, and desperate for a fix
when he robbed a local Food Lion grocery store just over five years ago. "I
would do anything necessary - anything I had to do - to get crack cocaine,"
Hollowell recalls.

Hollowell ran afoul of the state law several times in his years as an
addict, but was able to straighten out with the assistance of Sentencing
Services, a nonprofit agency paid for with state money.

Now that program faces an uncertain future as state legislators, facing a
steep budget deficit, seek ways to cut costs.

On Jan. 18, 1997, Hollowell became desperate enough to snatch a handful of
money from a Food Lion cash register. He was arrested less than a day
later, and was looking at "many, many years" of prison time, he said.

But prison - Hollowell was no stranger to the state correctional system -
wasn't the answer, he said. Hollowell knew he could still get drugs in
prison, so he would come out just as addicted as when he went in.

Hollowell didn't go to prison, though. He was interviewed by Kim Parrish,
who runs the regional office of Sentencing Services.

The organization works with prosecutors to find alternatives to jail time
for some offenders.

"The majority of people we work with have drug or alcohol problems,"
Parrish said.

Parrish is married to Frank Parrish, lead prosecutor for the region, but
that relationship does not give her any special influence with her
husband's staff, she said.

"They don't kowtow to me because of their boss," she said.

Kim Parrish also does not work with anyone accused of a violent crime, she
said. Her program only takes nonviolent offenders who are looking at
significant jail time.

And some people Parrish interviews still go to jail.

"Sometimes, what the offender needs is prison," she said. "I do not want
people to think we're some liberal, bleeding-heart group," she said.

If Parrish decides an offender is a good candidate for treatment, she tries
to get them placed in an effective treatment facility. Offenders are also
required to pay restitution to their victims in most cases.

Treatment doesn't always work, Parrish conceded, but the program has an 80
percent success rate.

It is also much cheaper than prison, saving $22 million statewide last
year, Parrish said.

In Hollowell's case, the program worked. He says he got sober, got trained
as a counsellor and began helping others. After three years working in the
program he graduated from, he is now working to open a similar
rehabilitation program in Asheville.

Parrish's office may not be around to steer clients toward Hollowell, though.

The program costs $5.8 million statewide, and legislators nearly cut it
from the state budget last year. An eleventh-hour appeal got the program
added back to the budget, but this year could be a harder fight, Parrish said.

Legislators are trying to tighten the state budget as much as possible,
said Rep. William T. Culpepper III, who chairs the Appropriations Committee
on Justice and Public Safety in the state House.

"Everything is up for review," Culpepper said. "It's probably the worst
(budget situation) since the Great Depression."

Culpepper said he is a strong supporter of Sentencing Services, but that he
cannot predict what programs will be spared from the budget axe.

The new state budget year begins in July, and Parrish is hoping for the
best, she said.

"We'll find out June 30," Parrish said.