Federal grant will help inmate Drug Court get off the ground

Wednesday, Oct. 27, 1999 | 10:21 a.m.

CARSON CITY -- A federal grant of $562,500 will apparently clear away legal roadblocks that have prevented the start of Gov. Kenny Guinn's highly touted program to release low-risk prison inmates early to the supervision of Drug Courts in Las Vegas and Reno.

Scott Scherer, Guinn's legal counsel, said Tuesday the money will permit the stalled program, believed to be among the first in the nation, "to get off the ground."

There are about 400 drug courts in the United States, but this will be the first time any will accept prison inmates, said District Judge Jack Lehman, who started the Drug Court program in Nevada.

A law passed this year setting up the program required the prison system to show savings before the state would fund the program. The federal grant will allow the prison system to do that.

The state expects to save on food, medical supplies, uniforms and incidentals for inmates, but those costs don't add up to the estimated $2,500 annual cost per inmate for the drug program.

Final confirmation of the Justice Department grant was expected today.

The grant proposal requested $3,700 per inmate to allow 100 inmates to be released in phases from the state prisons to the Drug Court in Las Vegas and 50 prisoners to Reno, Lehman said. The Drug Courts will receive $2,500 per inmate. The other $1,200 per inmate will go to the state Division of Parole and Probation for officers to supervise them.

"This is where the whole drug addict thing needs to go," Lehman said. "Jail and prison do not cure a drug addict. He has to want to undergo treatment."

The Drug Court combines strict supervision, required treatment and regular drug tests with severe consequences -- the possibility of going back to jail -- to push drug offenders onto the straight and narrow.

Lehman said 1,212 people have graduated from the seven-year Las Vegas program, which currently takes offenders on probation. Of those only 18 percent have been in trouble with the law since then.

That's a pretty good record, especially when compared with the record of the prison system, Lehman said.

"Prison statistics show that 80 percent of the drug addicts who are released get in trouble within two years," Lehman said.

The program will be restricted to nonviolent inmates who have had no problems in prison, the judge said. Prime candidates are likely in prison for other nonviolent crimes such as fraudulent checks, cheating at gambling, burglary or stolen credit cards, but drugs are the root of their problems.

Inmates before being released would have to have housing and a job. But Lehman and other judges have vowed to help in these areas.

During the first two weeks, or the "detoxication phase," the former inmates would receive acupuncture six days a week to reduce stress and craving for drugs. They have to give urine specimens every other day to assure they are free of drugs, and they must attend two counseling sessions a week.

In the second phase acupuncture is not required but can be continued if the person wants it. During this period, which lasts eight weeks, drug testing continues, and counseling sessions step up to three a week. The inmate must submit clean urine samples for at least the last four weeks of this phase to graduate to the next level.

A 16-week program follows with two counseling sessions a week and two urine samples a week.

That brings the individual to the six-month mark. Lehman said he requires regular enrollees to either have jobs by that time or do community service. But the inmates in this program will already be working.