DRUGS ON THE DOCKET

Unorthodox Court Program Encourages Users To Come Clean, Start
Over

OTTAWA - The judge looks down at the crack addict and starts to talk
hockey.

It's a bid to bridge the psychological and physical distance that is
ingrained in the theatre of criminal court.

Judge David Wake smiles, skips a few beats, then gets down to
business. "Any use or high-risk situations?" The young man shuffles
his feet in the crack dance. He realizes the judge is asking if he's
been using drugs or hanging around places where he might slip.

"No, all clear," he replies.

Ruth Mayhew, Drug Treatment Court director, then speaks on the man's
behalf.

She confirms he has tested negative for drugs during a week of
rigorous and random testing. She says he deserves praise and a $5 Tim
Hortons coffee card, the tangible reward for those who put in a clean
week.

The addict takes his reward before dissolving into the motley crew of
reforming addicts who applaud enthusiastically from the public benches.

One clean week is a step toward graduation. Twenty-three more and the
judge will step down from the bench to present a certificate of
accomplishment. It's easier said than done. Only 10 per cent make six
months without using. The rest must find other ways to measure success.

Next up are two young women who admit to using crack since their
appearance one week earlier. At Drug Treatment Court honesty is king
and a quick confession key since they're sure to be found out. There
is tolerance for slips off the wagon -- an acknowledgement of how
tough and tortuous it is to escape the grip of crack cocaine.

Still, there are limits. It behooves the addict to stop using
altogether before the court reaches its "exhausted patience clause,"
which will typically return the addict to the mainstream court system
and likely to jail.

Offenders in Drug Treatment Court are always facing jail for the petty
theft that feeds their habit. After a rigorous assessment, they are
accepted into the program and begin treatment with Rideauwood
Addiction and Family Services. First they are required to plead guilty
to any charges they face.

Addicts in the program set to work on reducing their drug dependency
and perhaps achieving one of two goals: 1. Clean living for six
months: If they stay drug-free and take all required treatment and
counselling, they'll walk away with a graduation certificate, one
day's probation and, with any luck, a promising future.

2. Clean living for three months: Leave with a year's probation.
(Since staying away from drugs will be a condition of probation, this
can be a trap for those likely to relapse.) There are six Drug
Treatment Courts in Canada -- Ottawa, Winnipeg, Toronto, Calgary,
Edmonton and Regina. Each is more or less modelled on the first in
North America which opened in Miami in 1989.

The goal of the courts is to reduce the number of drug addicts doing
serious jail time and to cut the related petty crime. (Addicts often
emerge from incarceration with more voracious drug habits than they
had going in.) Not everyone is sold. Some critics have a problem with
the prerequisite guilty plea. Others wonder if there's not a better
way to spend the million dollars in federal cash and court resources
that it takes to run the Ottawa program each year.

Justices Judith Beaman and Peter Wright have been with Ottawa's drug
court since its inception four years ago. They are well aware of the
tension. "You are using limited resources on a few people who have a
dubious track record of success," says Beaman.

In regular criminal court, petty offenders are kept at a distance. In
drug court, judges, prosecutors and defence lawyers get to know the
regulars who are required make a weekly appearance. "Most judges
aren't comfortable with that degree of connection or intimacy," Beaman
explains. "They feel they have more authority if they keep their
distance. It's not everybody's cup of tea and we're not trained for
it." It doesn't help that there are no one-size-fits-all solutions. "I
had an expectation that it would be easier to cure addictions," says
Wright. "I had an expectation that success would be measured by
graduations. Never having been an addict, I underestimated the degree
of difficulty in overcoming addiction." He says he's come to recognize
the value of the program -- even to those who don't graduate.

"They may have gone from using crack every day to some lesser drug
occasionally. Before we started, I wouldn't have viewed that as a
success," he says. "I do now." Beaman agrees that small steps are
worth celebrating.

"Just getting people clean of drugs for however long they can -- two
weeks or three weeks -- is something," she says. "If they have had a
period of abstinence, they are more likely to return to treatment and
are more likely to give another program a try. When they are in a
program, they aren't committing crime, which means the saving of
thousands of taxpayers dollars." Beaman says it takes more than a
residential treatment program to wrestle free from crack.

"There are so many other aspects to an individual's life -- their
family, their housing, their work, their health. So many people come
with mental health difficulties and it's hard to say whether it
predated the drug problem or whether it's a consequence of the drugs."

She dismisses the notion that the prerequisite guilty plea stigmatizes
addicts.

"Some people call it coercive, but I've come to grips with that," she
says. "People coming into the program already have lengthy criminal
records. We're not taking anyone with a clean slate by any stretch.
It's also harder than staying in the regular system and people
absolutely don't have to do it."

Addicts in the program get fast-track access to top-class treatment,
she says.

"It's been shown that having the stick of the court system and the
close supervision of someone in authority helps. Even if they don't
graduate, we take a look at what they did in the program and it can
mitigate the sentence."

There's no denying the tension: Crown prosecutors feel the court is
too lenient. Defence lawyers think the opposite. "We can't step
outside of our roles completely," Beaman says.

Addicts with recent violent crime on their record are not allowed in
the program. Nor are those who are likely to reoffend or negatively
influence others, or those with any convictions for residential
break-and-enter.

There is a growing sense the equation should consider the
circumstances of the crime and an offender's history.

"Crowns more recently have slammed the door on any controversial
person," says Beaman. "I think the public is better protected having
these people in the program than not."

Studies in the United States have shown that addicts facing longer
sentences -- three or four years -- tend to be more motivated and more
likely to complete the program than someone who can do three months in
jail.

Offenders emerge destined to repeat the cycle.

There are typically about 15 addicts, or "clients," in Ottawa's Drug
Treatment Court at any time. Of the 200 who have gone through the
program, about 10 per cent made graduation at the highest level.

The Rideauwood program isn't soft time and for addicts used to the
chaotic crack life it's a radical adjustment.

"When somebody says turn left, they want to turn right. They are a
high needs group of people," says Rideauwood's senior director of
corporate services James Budd. "I can think of some who would have
graduated but who tired of the constant scrutiny. Since they were not
facing very long sentences in the first place, they chose to leave the
program and do the time."

Still, Budd says, a quarter of drug court clients have made
"significant changes" to their lives.

"We keep in touch," he says of the drop outs. "They are no longer
homeless and no longer addicted to crack cocaine or opiates. They are
housed and working. That's success."

Even if they don't graduate, they leave with basic tools, he
says.

"They know how to access services and know what it feels like not to
be using for a time. Jail is very corrective and more about
consequence than rehabilitation. Addiction is a health problem and
incarceration isn't the solution."

Budd cites a couple of examples: One 39-year-old addict turned his
life around after spending years on the street sleeping under a
barbecue cover. Another former intravenous drug user is back living
with her parents.

"She didn't complete the program," he says, "But she's not using
opiates or crack -- though doubtless she's smoking marijuana."

It's difficult to predict who will succeed. "I've seen people come
into this program who I wouldn't have expected to last five minutes.
They have stayed for months and done remarkably well."

Others though have tried to fool the Rideauwood drug
testing.

"Some have got others to pee for them," Budd explains. "It always
catches up to you. You or I can slip off for a beer and nobody
notices, but if these people slip off for a beer, they wake up three
or four days later after a big crack run. So it shows without testing."

Assistant Crown attorney David Moffat is a prosecutor at the weekly
sessions. He says the system is mutually beneficial.

"Rideauwood is a program set up to take around 20 people who are
committing crimes to support their drug habit," he says. "If each
commits one crime a day to support their habit, that's 100 crimes a
workweek -- 140 if you include the weekend. If we can help them kick
their habit, it follows that they aren't committing crimes any more.
So we get to do some good."

Crack crimes are invariably petty, he says, though not necessarily
insignificant. "Breaking into someone's car and stealing a GPS isn't
the crime of the century," he says, "until it happens to you."

Moffat was warned that his work with drug users would be fraught with
disappointment. He knows that fewer than half of those in the program
will succeed.

"My definition of success is fewer dealings with the criminal justice
system." He knows that his colleagues don't share his enthusiasm for
the program.

Staying out of jail is the key motivator for most offenders who want
into Drug Treatment Court, says Rideauwood's Budd.

"We also hope they catch the fever, and see this as an opportunity to
start a new life."

About this series

Everyone should spend some time at the courthouse -- preferably on the
right side of the law. It's free, open to the public and offers unique
insights into the Ottawa community.

This series came out of three months I spent covering the Ottawa
courthouse.

At the time, a manslaughter trial and dozens of other cases were
directly or indirectly linked to crack.

Crack cocaine is not a problem confined to any marginalized group or a
single area of the city.

As this series will show, its tentacles reach deep.

- - Chris Cobb