Posted on Thursday, May 26, 2005

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