DRUG COURT PROVES SUCCESSFUL

Two years ago, Theresa Spear-Chase spent Christmas in Pioneer Park looking for a drug fix.

"It was a bummer, real depressing -- it was cold," she says today.  "But at least I knew I was going to eat that day.  There was Christmas dinner at the shelter."

This year, Spear-Chase, 35, is spending Christmas with her new husband and three stepsons.  She has a job, has reunited with her parents and thoroughly kicked her heroin and cocaine habits.

"This will the best Christmas ever," she says.

Chalk up another success for Utah's drug court, which emphasizes treatment over incarceration.

Four and a half years ago, drug court was an experimental program viewed with skepticism by police and tenuously funded by a small federal grant.

No wonder.  Drug court's philosophy of treatment and counseling was the antithesis of the nation's War on Drugs, which over the past two decades has put hundreds of thousands of addicts behind bars in prisons across the country.

But the drug court vision is slowly gaining momentum.

Utah officials say it is 10 times cheaper to treat addicts than lock them up.  And the recidivism rate for drug court graduates is about eight times lower than for drug offenders sent to prison.

That makes sense to Utah legislators, who last year allocated $1.4 million in permanent funding to drug courts.  This year, Gov.  Mike Leavitt is recommending lawmakers sink an additional $3.5 million into the program -- now a statewide phenomenon that is growing as fast as budgeting allows.

All eight of Utah's court districts either have drug courts or are planning to start them.

"It's one of the most successful programs we've ever come up with for treating drug addicts," says Salt Lake County District Attorney David Yocom.  "Cops and some prosecutors used to be against it, but I think we've won 'em over."

"There are folks who believe the answer to drug problems is harsh penalties," adds Adult Probation & Parole Director Kirk Torgensen.  "We've done that and it's not made a difference.  Drug court is a more enlightened approach to the whole thing."

Once a skeptic, Salt Lake County Sheriff Aaron Kennard is now a wholehearted convert.

"I was one of the first naysayers, saying the money could be better spent on other ention programs," says Kennard.  "I've been pleasantly surprised."

Says 3rd District Judge Dennis Fuchs: "I don't know anyone who works in the program who doesn't believe in it."

But Fuchs, who was Utah's first drug court judge, warns that such courts will never be a complete remedy to the nation's drug ills.

"It's one way to deal with America's drug problem," Fuchs says.  "Is it the answer to America's drug problem? Probably not.

"Drug court deals with people who are already using drugs and addicted to drugs.  We need to educate kids so they don't use drugs in the first place."

Since Utah's first drug court opened in June 1996, Fuchs has seen 215 people graduate, with only 15 rearrested on new drug charges.

"That's a recidivism rate of about 7 percent," says Brent Kelsey, state drug court information systems and program analyst.  "Most programs [nationwide] report similar results.  So Utah's program looks pretty good."

By comparison, the recidivism rate for drug offenders sent to prison can exceed 60 percent.

To qualify for Utah's drug court, defendants must have a prior drug-related conviction, be charged with a new felony drug offense, be a U.S.  citizen and have no record of violence.  Participants enter guilty pleas, which are held in abeyance and dismissed upon graduation from the program, which takes about 18 months.  Those who fail -- about half of those who enroll -- are sentenced for the crime to which they initially pleaded.

As participants advance through a series of treatment classes, they are closely monitored by urine testing.  And during a multitude of court appearances, participants personally report their progress to the judge, who acts as a parent figure by getting to know each participant and giving encouragement, applause or punishment if they relapse.

On the Tuesday before Christmas, Judge Fuchs tells participants, "Give me a good Christmas present -- stay clean over the holidays!"

Fuchs says drug court is the most demanding part of his job but also the most rewarding.

"Drug court participants get treated differently than any other defendants," Fuchs says.  "It requires more personal involvement.  I've performed weddings, I write letters to employers."

Fuchs has even invited defendants to run with him at lunchtime.  "One or two showed up," Fuchs says, adding: "I still jog.  They don't."

Despite the demands of drug court, Fuchs insists that any burnout is countered by the program's uplifting graduation ceremonies.

"Drug court has many more rewards than anything else I do as a judge," Fuchs says.  "It keeps you going when you see people doing well."

Fuchs says he volunteered for the program because he believes drug and alcohol abuse is more a disease than a crime.  Growing up in New York in the 1960s, Fuchs saw a number of his friends destroyed by drugs.  Addicts "can't always help what they're doing," he says.

Salt Lake's program has 260 active participants.  By the end of year, officials hope to add another judge and 140 more defendants.  And by 2003, the plan is to have 1,200 defendants enrolled in drug court, says F.  John Hill, director of the Salt Lake County public defender's office, who helps run the program.

"If you remove 1,200 addicts from the streets into drug court, there will be a measurable and immediate decrease in the rate of crime," says Hill, whose only complaint is that the revolutionary courts are not being funded faster.  "If it's good for a few, we really need to make it systemic."

There are active drug court programs in Weber, Davis, Utah and Uintah counties.  Cache, Rich, Box Elder, Tooele and Emery counties all received money this year to fund start-ups, which include juvenile drug courts and programs to assist children put at risk by their parents' drug abuse.

Defense attorney Greg Skordas and Assistant Utah Attorney General Scott Reed, who brought the drug court idea to Utah after learning about it at a Las Vegas law conference, now look with satisfaction at how well it is working.

"There are people who, for the first time in their adult lives, their eyes are clear, their heads are clear and they're going somewhere -- you can't put a price on that," says Reed.  "That's what's so powerful.  You're giving them their lives back."

Adds Skordas: "It gives you a lot of restored confidence in the system, to think you could get a group of prosecutors, judges and defense attorneys who all agree on a concept.  All the stars lined up on this one."

"It's not easy.  It's an unlikely group of people," agrees Camille Anthony, executive director of the Utah Commission on Criminal and Juvenile Justice.  "In order to get a drug court going, you must establish relationships in the community that are normally adver- sarial."

But the program is now proving itself with results that are difficult to ignore.

And because of drug court, Spear-Chase, an October graduate, is giving herself a chance after 15 years of drug addiction, living on the streets and doing anything necessary to get high.

"I didn't care if I lived or died," she recalls.  "Now I have a sense of self-respect.  I like who I am, who I have become.  I want a life."