Where I Stand — Jack Lehman: Drug court a success

Sunday, Aug. 13, 2000 | 9:11 a.m.

Editor's note: In August Where I Stand is written by guest columnists. Today's guest is District Court Judge Jack Lehman.

"The establishment of drug courts, coupled with their judicial leadership, constitutes one of the most monumental changes in social justice in this country since World War." That was the pronouncement of U.S. Drug Czar Gen. Barry McCaffrey at a recent conference of the National Association of Drug Court Professionals.

When Clark County started its drug court in October 1992, we were the fifth such drug court in the United States. At this point, nearly eight years later, there are over 400 drug courts like ours in the country. The reason for this phenomenal growth is that drug courts work. They take addicts, both adults and juveniles, out of the criminal system, and put them into a treatment program designed to return them to our communities as working, taxpaying citizens. In doing that, the drug courts are also taking a substantial bite out of crime. The U.S. Justice Department estimates that the average addict commits between 50 and 100 crimes per year to support his or her habit.

Drug courts make economic sense for more reasons than the fact that they reduce crime. It costs approximately $13,000 per year to keep someone in the Clark County Detention Center, and approximately $23,000 per year to keep an addict in prison. It costs about $1,800 to put someone through the one-year drug court program, and they are not taking up space in a jail or prison. Furthermore, the drug court gets most of them off drugs. The jails or prisons do not. Statistics from state prisons show that without treatment, 80 percent of the addicts coming out of their institutions will commit and be convicted of another crime within two to three years. The recidivism rate for addicts who graduated from the Clark County Drug Court is 19 percent after nearly eight years of operation.

The original drug court was started in Dade County, Fla., in 1988. It came about at the direction of the Florida Supreme Court, whose members had become totally disillusioned with the federal government's so-called "war on drugs" on which the government had been spending billions of dollars per year of taxpayers' money and getting little or nothing for this huge expenditure of funds.

In spite of the fact that various law enforcement agencies had managed to confiscate thousands of kilos of pure cocaine on a fairly regular basis in Dade County, the price of cocaine had not fluctuated five cents on the streets of Miami over a substantial period of time. Since the whole concept behind the "war on drugs" was to keep drugs from coming into the country, and thereby drive the cost of the drugs significantly higher, it was apparent that the battle had been lost and the "war on drugs" was a bust.

The Florida Supreme Court concluded that it was time to try going after the user. They ordered that a drug treatment program be established in Dade County with a drug court judge as its head. Dade County commissioners agreed to fund the program, including the cost of setting up a clinic for treatment which included acupuncture, counseling and urinalysis three times per week. The treatment also included requiring each participant in the program to appear before the drug court judge at least once a month if he or she was doing well, and more often if they were not doing well.

The judge would have the record of each participant in front of him to show attendance, clean and dirty urines, and attitude. Those doing well got significant praise, and those that were not got immediate sanctions. In order to graduate, the addict had to be completely drug free for at least the last three months of the one-year program.

Upon graduation, if the arrest was a first for the addict, his or her charges were dismissed and the record was sealed. This meant that thereafter the addict could legally put on any application that he or she had never been arrested. If the arrest was not a first time, the graduate still got a significant reward, by having his or her charges reduced to a misdemeanor, or being guaranteed probation instead of prison.

This was the program on which we patterned the Clark County Drug Court. I am proud to say that we have been as successful as any drug court nationally, and more successful than most.

We presently have 1,800 people in our program and will soon be getting 100 more directly out of prison. They will be part of a pilot program envisioned and supported by Gov. Kenny Guinn to see if we cannot significantly reduce the 80 percent recidivism rate that we've had in the past for those coming out of prison. I commend the governor for his great vision in supporting this program.

As of July 26 we had 1,440 graduates from our program. Of those only 273 have been re-arrested and convicted of a new crime.

Those of us associated with drug courts have concluded that for the addict who is willing to get off drugs, treatment is a much better answer than jail or prison. Unfortunately, for those who are not willing to get off drugs, treatment will not accomplish anything, and jail or prison is still the only answer we have.