NINE JUDICIAL DISTRICTS MAY LOSE DRUG TREATMENT COURTS

CHARLOTTE, N.C. (AP) -- The state Administrative Office of the Courts has
proposed cutting financing for the state's drug treatment courts as it
tries to trim $11 million from its budget.

The courts operate in nine judicial districts and have been praised for
helping reform repeat drug and alcohol offenders. This year, the AOC spent
$1.1 million of it $305 million budget to finance them.

"It would be a tragedy to lose these courts, a real tragedy," said
Mecklenburg District Judge Phil Howerton, a recovering alcoholic who
started the first such court in Charlotte seven years ago without any state
money.

He has written Gov. Mike Easley, urging that money be restored.

Patty McQuillan, spokeswoman for the Administrative Office of the Courts in
Raleigh, said the court system's budget must be cut because of the state's
financial troubles.

"The current budget crisis is forcing the AOC to choose between cutting
programs or closing courts across the state," McQuillan said. "We've got to
maintain court services for the public even though the few programs the
court system has, such as the drug treatment program, have assisted in
turning lives around. But we can't close courts."

Sherrill Barnette, a former addict, graduated from the drug treatment court
program two years ago.

"This program gave me a chance to get my life back," she said.

Barnette, 38, now executive assistant to the director of the drug court
program, praises Howerton for helping her recover.

"He's a wonderful man," she said. "I owe him my life."

Drug courts began in Florida in the late 1980s to ease the burden on
criminal courts and to help for addicts. There are now more than 750 drug
courts nationwide.

Mecklenburg's drug treatment court has drawn attention across the
Carolinas. In North Carolina, similar drug courts have been set up in
Catawba, Buncombe, Durham, Forsyth, New Hanover and Wake counties.

Donna Smithey, director of Catawba County's DWI treatment court, worries
what will happen to addicts and alcoholics served by the courts across the
state.

"It's very frightening," Smithey said. "We're dealing with people who are
addicts. Without these treatment courts, these people would be in prison. I
don't know what's going to happen to the people we're serving in our court.
That worries me."

In his letter to the governor, Howerton wrote that studies show the $1.1
million North Carolina spends on drug treatment courts has saved the state
$10 million a year in criminal justice system costs.

North Carolina is spending $2,000 to $2,500 a year on each person in the
drug treatment courts. It costs more than $20,000 a year to house an inmate
in a state prison.

In a recent study, the Administrative Office of the Courts followed drug
treatment court participants, both those who graduated and those who were
terminated from the program, for a year. Only 13 percent of Mecklenburg's
graduates were re-arrested, many on minor traffic and misdemeanor charges.

Statewide, 21 percent of the graduates were re-arrested. The re-arrest rate
for a similar group of offenders, who were addicted but did not go into the
treatment program, was 47 percent.