Wednesday, July 14, 1999
Drug courts offer reprieves in life
Idea spreads as success record grows
BY STEVE KEMME
The Cincinnati Enquirer
Marlinda Bailey, an addict for 29 years, talks with Judge Deidra Hair at a drug court graduation ceremony.
(Michael Snyder photo)
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In the throes of alcoholism, Michele Gray hit bottom when she lived for three days in a car full of empty beer cans.
At the height of his addiction to pain pills, Danny Woods was spending $500 a day to buy pills on the street. He lost his houseand his job as a pro at a Northern Kentucky golf course, and wound up behind bars on charges of deception to obtain dangerous drugs.
During his 30 years of drug addiction, John Burns shuttled in and out of prison and sometimes lived on the streets. At one point, he was shooting up five times a day with cocaine or a mixture of water and Ritalin, often prescribed for children with attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder.
“I had no desire to stop doing drugs,” said the 47-year-old Hamilton man.
Today, all three Greater Cincinnati residents are recovering substance abusers with full-time jobs who credit their dramatic turnarounds to drug court, an intensive, long-term treatment and counseling program that's offered as an alternative to jail.
In the last four years, local drug courts have helped transform dozens of drug addicts who clogged the jails and the courts and siphoned taxpayer's money into sober, law-abiding, tax-paying citizens. As the nation continues to debate how to fight drugs, drug court may be one of the most successful methods in a field rife with expensive failures.
Patricia Land is one of those drug court success stories.
During more than seven years of addiction, Ms. Land took mind-altering pills every day and went on drinking binges on weekends. She was arrested 47 times on a variety of drug and drug-related charges.
With the help of Butler County's drug court program, Ms. Land, 36, of Hamilton has been sober for 20 months. As a result, she has been able to take a more active role in her two teen-age sons' lives and volunteers as a counselor at Horizon Services, a drug treatment agency under contract to serve Butler County's drug court.
“I feel a lot better today than I did when I was taking those pills,” she said. “It makes me feel good now to help others. Before, I didn't care if you lived or died, as long as I got high.”
Drug courts, which accept only nonviolent offenders, are more effective than more traditional drug treatment programs in preventing relapses.
Along with helping drug addicts, drug courts also free space in jails for violent criminals and reduce court caseloads. Because of their success, drug courts have been proliferating throughout the country.
Hamilton County started the first drug court in the area in 1995. Butler County began one the next year. In Northern Kentucky, drug courts opened in Kenton County last year and in Campbell County this year.
“Drug court saved my life,” said Ms. Gray, a 43-year-old Hamilton resident who graduated from the Butler County drug court last year and is a manager at a McDonald's restaurant.
Since Dade County, Fla., opened the first drug court 10 years ago, 374 more have opened, with an additional 200 in the planning stages, according to the Drug Court Clearinghouse and Technical Assistance Project at American University.
All 50 states either have drug courts or plan to start them, according to the Drug Court Clearinghouse, which gathers information on drug courts for the U.S. Department of Justice. “More criminal court judges are starting to recognize the limitations of the usual legal processes for drug addicts,” said Carolyn Cooper, director of the clearinghouse project.
Of the 357 who have graduated from Hamilton County Drug Court, 34 (9.5 percent) were arrested later on a felony charge. Of the 64 who have graduated from Butler County Drug Court, six (9.4 percent) were arrested later.
Slightly more than half of those who entered the drug courts in Hamilton and Butler counties graduated from the 12- to 15-month programs. The completion rate for more traditional drug programs is less than 50 percent, national drug studies show.
These figures, similar to drug courts across the country, suggest that drug courts work better than traditional treatment programs, said Dr. Steven Belenko, senior research associate at Columbia University's National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse. “The long-term outcomes indicate that people who go to drug court do better than those who did not,” said Dr. Belenko.
Kenton County's drug court has 31 participants and Campbell County's has 11. No one has graduated from either because they're so new. Campbell County plans to start a juvenile drug court this year.
The annual cost of Hamilton County's drug court is $1.7 million, with the state contributing $275,000 and participants paying on the basis of a sliding-fee scale. Butler County's drug court has an annual cost of $350,000. The state pays $65,000, and each participant must pay $500.
Drug courts are far more intense, demanding and long-term than the more traditional treatment programs. They require offenders to submit to frequent, random drug tests, go to counselors in the drug court program, attend an outside 12-step program, such as Alcoholics Anonymous or Narcotics Anonymous, and appear at least monthly before a judge.
Participants often spend two or three months as inpatients at special hospital units. Hamilton County is unusual in having its own inpatient facility for drug court offenders, the Hamilton County Alcohol and Drug Addiction Services (ADAS) Center.
Judges become almost parental figures, praising and encouraging those who resist the compulsion to take drugs, but punishing those who relapse by sending them to jail for two or three days.
“Being a drug court judge is like being a surgeon in a M*A*S*H unit,” Butler County Drug Court Judge Randy Rogers said. “Not everybody is going to get off the operating table. Some people are going to die on you. If you want perfection, this isn't the place to be.”
Neither Judge Rogers, who also runs probate court, nor Hamilton County Drug Court Judge Deidra Hair, who also handles municipal court, have iron-clad criteria for expelling people from the program.
Drug court is so demanding that some possible candidates choose to go to jail instead. It consumes much of the participants' time and requires them to confront their inner demons.
“Jail time was much easier,” said Mr. Woods, a 47-year-old Florence resident who spent two months in jail before entering Hamilton County Drug Court. “In jail, you ... just sit in a cell and play cards or read a book.”
Pretrial officers help Hamilton County and Butler County drug courts identify potential drug court candidates before they're indicted. That spares the court system countless hearings and trials connected with those cases and places the offenders in programs where they can be helped instead of setting them free on probation with no treatment.
Many aspects of drug court contribute to the success of the participants, but none may be more important than the judges. Graduates of Hamilton and Butler counties' drug courts say the combination of firmness and empathy displayed by the judges, counselors and probation officers played a crucial role in their recovery.
Pam, a 35-year-old nurse who became addicted to pain pills, said she rebelled when she first entered Hamilton County Drug Court. A simple fear of jail and of Judge Hair motivated her at first. A mother of three, the Cincinnati woman had been given an 18-month to three-year suspended sentence for a felony drug conviction.
“Every time I had to go to drug court, I was scared to death of Judge Hair,” said Pam, a drug court graduate who asked that her last name be withheld.
“After I changed my attitude, I saw her as a person who cares and has a sense of humor. She gave me an opportunity when somebody else might have put me in jail for 18 months. Whenever I think of using drugs, I think of Judge Hair looking down at me over those glasses.”
Ms. Gray said Judge Rogers and counselors helped her regain her self-esteem after years of alcoholism. She remembered the day the judge called her into his chambers after a drug court review session.
“He said, "You think I go home and forget about you,'” she said. “"I take a lot of you people home in my heart.' Things like that stuck with me.”
At a recent Hamilton County Drug Court graduation ceremony at the ADAS Center, the gymnasium was hot and muggy, but the mood was exuberant.
One by one, 40 graduates were called to the stage to receive a box containing a glass star inscribed with their names. The graduates, their relatives and friends applauded each name that was called.
Some graduates walked on the stage carrying infant children or holding their toddlers by the hand. Many hugged Judge Hair.
Don Robinson had been arrested at least 40 times on drug- and alcohol-related charges before he entered Butler County Drug Court in 1997.
“I thought I'd keep drinking and doing drugs until I died,” said Mr. Robinson, 36, of Hamilton.
But he said he listened to his counselors and developed a strong bond with God. After he graduated from drug court, he obtained a full-time maintenance job.
“I don't have to worry about all the times I tried to quit and couldn't,” Mr. Robinson said. “I worry about staying sober today. God has helped me see that without the drugs and alcohol, I can be a happy person.”
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