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Concentrating on Reentry Yields Results Print E-mail

Concentrating on Reentry Yields Results
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RETHINKING AMERICA'S PRISONS Print E-mail

RETHINKING AMERICA'S PRISONS    

Record numbers of ex-cons return to Illinois streets
More people ask how to help them adjust     

By Rex W. Huppke
Tribune staff reporter
June 19, 2005 
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Drug courts lower costs, recidivism, officials told Print E-mail

Drug courts lower costs, recidivism, officials told

By DON PLUMMER
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Published on: 06/23/05

More than 190 judges and court officials gathered Wednesday in Marietta to learn about a low-cost program that is reducing the stream of repeat drug offenders that clog court calendars in Georgia.

Drug treatment courts, first developed in Miami in response to the 1980s crack cocaine epidemic, add rehabilitation to traditional punishment of offenders. But they are far from "Get out of jail free cards," said Cobb County Superior Court Judge George Kreeger, who heads Georgia's drug court  committee.

"It's the hardest work most of our participants have ever done," said Kreeger, who also runs Cobb's drug treatment court.

Drug offenders must complete a rigorous program of addiction treatment, vocational counseling and random drug testing to avoid jail time. The alternative approach provides a balance between punishment and rehabilitation that is winning support from prosecutors and defense lawyers.

Georgia's first drug court was established in Bibb County in 1994 by Superior Court Judge Tommy Day Wilcox. It is still in operation and there are now 33 counties with treatment courts, according to Georgia's Administrative Office of the Courts.

Most metro Atlanta counties have adopted drug treatment courts in the past few years. Those without the programs include Cherokee, Paulding, Clayton and Henry counties, said Jane Martin of the Judicial Council of Georgia, which is sponsoring the two-day Drug and DUI Court Conference.

The current rise in the use of methamphetamine across Georgia is cited by court and prison officials as a reason for the growth of alternatives to the traditional revolving-door legal system, chockablock with repeat offenders.

West Huddleston, who directs the National Drug Court Institute, said Wednesday that drug treatment court programs are receiving positive reviews nationwide. "The problem is that what we have traditionally done doesn't work," Huddleston said. "The drug court seeks to solve the problem of recidivism by breaking the cycle of abuse, crime, prison and return to addiction by restoring the participants to health."

A new study of Georgia's drug treatment courts shows that only 17percent of graduates are later convicted of another crime, said Debra Nesbit, who monitors treatment court programs for the Judicial Council of Georgia. That compares to a national recidivism rate of 48 percent among similar offenders who go through traditional courts, Nesbit said.

The courts are effective and a less-expensive alternative to jailing offenders, said Carroll County Assistant District Attorney Josh Vandall.

"We give them chances," Vandall said Wednesday. "We want them to succeed, but we also will put them in jail if they continue to use."

There's an economic benefit to the approach, according to proponents. Instead of sitting idle in jail, treatment court participants are required to pay a hefty percentage of the cost of operating treatment courts, Kreeger said.
"We collect about $2,400 a year [from each offender], that's almost all the cost of the treatment component," said Kreeger.

From the first treatment court in Miami the concept spread slowly until2000, when 665 were in operation nationwide. That year they received a boost when the American Bar Association approved guidelines for treatment courts and they were endorsed by national associations of chief justices and court administrators. The number of drug treatment courts had grown to more than 1,600 in 2004, according to the National Drug Court Institute.

The adult treatment court concept has been adopted by juvenile courts in six Georgia counties. All but one have been in operation since 2000. The three metro Atlanta juvenile treatment courts are in DeKalb, Cobb and Newton counties.

Another reason some attending the conference are actively considering adding treatment courts is that there is more state money available for start-up costs.
Nearly $1 million was appropriated beginning July 1 to fund start-up costs of courts in Georgia after legislation was passed in 2004 authorizing and setting standards for drug treatment court programs. That more than doubled the $450,000 allocated last year, according to the National Drug Court Institute.
"For courts in rural areas where there are fewer dollars available to start treatment courts, state and federal funding is essential," Huddleston said. "But the competition is so great for federal funding that having state and local money available is important."
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Girl Scouts Guiding Troubled Teens Print E-mail

Girl Scouts Guiding Troubled Teens


By Bonnie L. Cook, INQUIRER STAFF WRITER


Two boxes of Girl Scout cookies vanished faster than burgers at-a picnic, as the five girls who ate them laughed their way through a drama exercise.

I can't act," said Laura, 15, then overcame shyness and did, to much applause.

If not for the dark� blue prison pants, it would be hard to tell that these ponytailed teens were juvenile offenders, or that this was anything more than an ordinary Girl Scout meeting.

But behind the secure walls of Montgomery County Youth Center in Norristown, the Girl Scouts have extended a hand to teens in trouble.

In a special program called Girl Scouting in Detention Centers, imprisoned girls meet weekly for crafts and role-playing. About 270 participated here last year.

At the meetings the girls, whose last names are withheld because they are minors, talk about their hopes and dreams and the reasons they got into trouble in the first place.

Nicole, 16, said she was being detained for missing court after stealing a can of whipped cream. Janda, 17, said she had violated curfew, then spat on police, triggering a resisting-arrest charge.

Laura said she hit her mom during one of their frequent fist-fights, then ran from police. All three were looking to turn their lives around.

No one knows whether participation in Girl Scouts will help keep juvenile offenders such as these on the right track. But the federal government believes it's worth a hefty infusion of public money.

Since 2000, $11 million has been funneled to Girl Scout councils nationwide to reach at-risk girls in unconventional settings like prisons and shelters. Currently, there are 70 Girl Scout programs in youth prisons.

The effort dovetails with a 1996 study by the U.S. Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention that showed arrest rates among girls rising at far greater rates than among boys 23 percent from 1989 to 1993, compared with 11 percent for boys.

Where troubled girls are, scouting should follow, the thinking goes, because scouting can offer girls positive role models and tools for building self-esteem.

"We want to help that girl find her voice and learn that she is an important member of society, and has something important to give," said Janet E. Garretson, executive director of Girl Scouts of Freedom Valley, a council based in Valley Forge.

Freedom Valley and the Girl Scouts of Camden County oversee the prison-based Girl Scout troops in the Philadelphia region.

Last year, the two groups received a total of $42,000 in federal money. This year, $400,000 has been earmarked for 17 scout councils to enhance prison programs, but it is not clear yet how much the two local councils will get.

The troops, for girls between 11 and 17 years old, meet in a half-dozen juvenile correctional facilities in Bucks, Camden, Chester, and Montgomery Counties. The councils send a paid leader with planned activity and supplies to meetings such as those on Jan. 5 and 12.

"They do things germane to any Girl Scout troop," said Maureen Raquet, director of the Montgomery County Youth Center. "They don't sell cookies, that's the only thing they can't do."

During one troop meeting at the Youth Center in Norristown, leader Jocabed Ortiz, a 19-yearold Ursinus College student, showed the girls how to make decoupage boxes using cut paper and paste.

The girls, still stressed from recent incarceration, thumbed quietly through magazines for words and images that reflected their personalities.

Nicole chose the words "smile" and "unforgettable" as part of her box which she said was for a girlfriend in jail. Laura chose "in love," along with the picture of a heart. "It's for my boyfriend," she said. "We're going to get married. It's going to happen when I'm 18."

Janda, more animated than the others, wanted to talk about life at home. "Nobody likes me in my town for some reason," she said, which provoked lively discussion.

Though attendance at troop meetings is required, the girls appeared to enjoy them. Laura said she might even keep up with scouting after her release.

"It depends on what happens," she said. "This might be the thing that keeps me out of trouble."

Another chance, instead of jail Print E-mail
Posted on Thursday, May 26, 2005


Another chance, instead of jail


Nonviolent drug offenders in Philadelphia Treatment Court have their records expunged if they stay arrest-free for a year. The success rate is 86%.


By Julie Stoiber, Inquirer Staff Writer


The clock is ticking for Nicholas Stakelbeck, a tattooed 23-year-old from Mayfair who has spent the last two years hanging on by his fingertips to the second chance a Philadelphia Municipal Court judge held out to him.

Will he stay clean, get into the Air Force, land that forklift job at the soft-drink warehouse?


Or will he wind up back at Dauphin, and Sepviva Streets, or some corner like it, with a joint in his hand and marijuana in his pockets?


The odds favor a turnaround for Stakelbeck and the other 10 nonviolent drug offenders who graduated last week from Philadelphia Treatment Court, a jail alternative at the forefront of a burgeoning national movement toward "problem-solving courts" that saw 400 such courts added last year.


The court, based in Room 1006 of the Criminal Justice Center, has graduated 961 offenders since it began in 1997 - and 86 percent have remained arrest-free for a year and had their record made clean. Drug courts began in 1989 in Miami when Janet Reno was district attorney there, and their rapid acknowledgement that they are effective, John Walters, director of the National Drug Court said in an interview.


"These courts have believed in people who have given up on themselves," he said.


In Philadelphia, a maximum of 370 offenders participate in treatment court at any one time because of space limits. Louis J. Presenza, president judge of Municipal Court and founding judge of the treatment court adjudicates them. He has an arsenal of sanctions and incentives to entice resisters to meet counseling, drug counseling and training requirements.


"Quite frankly, they're manipulative," he said of offenders. "They lie, they cheat, they steal, and use everybody else. Most people relapse."


The treatment regimen, which is overseen by caseworkers, is designed to last a year. Stakelbel has attended more than once.


"I would do good and mess up, do good and mess up," he said. "I'm hardheaded."


Presenza, a silver-haired South Philadelphia native, once sent Stakelbeck to jail for a couple of weeks then ordered him into inpatient therapy. And he made him spend a day in court as a steady stream of other offenders checked in.


"It was like the Clint Eastwood movie The Good, the Bad and the Ugly," Presenza said. "You see some people smiling, about to graduate. And you see people going off to jail. I asked, "Which way do you want to end up?"


Last fall, caught in a lie and facing a five- to 10-year term on charges of delivery of marijuana at he was almost terminated from the program, Stakelbeck straightened up.


"I don't talk to my old associates," he said. "They'd rather see me high than sober. I've got goals, goals in months, goals in years."


Drug courts also operate in Chester and Camden Counties; Philadelphia added a juvenile division. The Philadelphia Treatment Court, one of 1,600 nationwide, operates on a budget of $1.5 million, with funding and federal and local grants.�����


The average cost per participant is $3,500 vs. an estimated $29,000 to incarcerate a prisoner for a month in Philadelphia.�����


"In the eyes of some people, they view this as coddling criminals, but you have to do something said. "For 15 years, I was in criminal court and it was a revolving door. It was time to deal with the issues that are driving that."


Todd Clear, distinguished professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York, said that drug court "offers an enormous new opportunity."


"Research finds very substantially that people who go through drug court do much better than those who don't in terms of recidivism and staying drug-free," he said.


If there is a criticism, Clear said, it is that drug courts lavish resources on low-level offenders. Any real innovation in criminal justice needs to focus on serious offenders.


Philadelphia District Attorney Lynne M. Abraham, one of a host of dignitaries at the graduation ceremony applauded the graduates for sticking out "a tough course."


"It's not a baby court," she said.�����


She urged the nine men and two women "to reach out to some brother or sister in the community who are struggling."


World B. Free, community relations ambassador for the 76ers, brought the audience to tears as he spoke of losing three of his brothers to drugs, one of them shot to death in a hallway as Free watched.


"All of them were on drugs, selling drugs," he said. "I'm telling you, it's real."


Finally, it was the graduates' turn. Presenza required each of them to make a speech. Some of them shared words of thanks. One spoke in Spanish. Stakelbeck took the opportunity to admit, "This was hard for me."


Rafi Sanchez, in a pale-pink tie, had his speech neatly written on notebook paper.


Sanchez, who works for a janitorial service and who the jud6e said had to overcome anger and other issues, summed it up this way: "This program is a do-over, a chance to go back to that fork in the road and turn in the other direction."


Philadelphia Inquirer, May 26, 2005

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