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Saturday, Jul 4, 2009
The success of a California measure that offers drug offenders treatment before prison points a way out of the drug-war stalemate.
Jun 26, 2003 | Inside Room 175 of the Contra Costa County courthouse, 20 miles east of San Francisco, men and women in yellow jumpsuits press themselves up to the barred windows of a Plexiglas-enclosed jury box that holds in-custody defendants. They are straining to hear drug counselors describe a new twist in the justice system, a change that to some must sound like a dream -- or a trick. Since when is compassion the punishment for drug crimes?
In California, since November 2000, when voters passed the Substance Abuse and Crime Prevention Act, or Proposition 36. Under Prop. 36, people convicted of drug possession are automatically steered to rehab rather than to jail. They still report to a probation officer, and the stick of incarceration hovers over their heads should they rack up three "treatment failures." But the state has effectively shifted its philosophy for dealing with drug offenders, replacing a harshly punitive response with an offer of recovery.
When Prop. 36 became law, it looked like an anomaly in a nation that had recently surpassed Russia as the world's most prolific jailer. But that was before the economy tanked, tax revenues plummeted, and state governments were confronted with the worst budget crisis since World War II. Today -- after two decades of overheated anti-drug rhetoric and skyrocketing prison populations -- prison spending is losing its sacred-cow status, and compromises like Prop. 36 are gaining appeal.
The California measure is still considered an experiment, one that breaks down and even fails from time to time. Cases of ineffective treatment, tangled bureaucracy, and scamming by users in the program have tainted glowing reviews, but so far, the results are encouraging enough: More drug users are getting clean than under the old regime; the population of drug users behind bars for possession is diminishing (by 30 percent in 2001); the state is saving money ($95 million in the first year); and thousands of children are being spared the trauma of parental incarceration.
Can a shotgun marriage between drug treatment and criminal justice become a lasting union? The question is likely to be answered in California. And if the answer is yes, a setting like the Contra Costa County courthouse may represent the next front in a kinder, gentler war on drugs.
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A low-level criminal courtroom is often a place of tension and sorrow. The atmosphere in this room is, incongruously, one of relief and quiet competence: "We'll get this taken care of" is a frequent refrain. Defendants here have already pleaded guilty to drug possession. Probationers on the courtroom benches are back in court for a periodic "treatment review."
"Maybe it wasn't entirely your fault," Judge Douglas Cunningham suggests to a wizened, white-haired and faintly trembling man in his 60s who has failed repeatedly to make his way to treatment. A prosecutor refers to another defendant's dirty drug test as a "speed bump" and suggests he be given another chance. A warrant is issued here and there for those who have failed to show up in court, but that is the exception and clearly not the desired outcome: In this room, putting people behind bars is not the goal.
Vallee Sunnen, a counselor, steps to the back of the courtroom to do an intake interview with a tired-looking blond woman in her 30s huddled inside a long black leather coat. "How many children do you have? Are you pregnant? Employed? Homeless?" These questions are intended to help Sunnen determine what kind of treatment the woman needs, but before Sunnen can get through them, her new client angrily interrupts her. She'd rather spend 30 days in jail and be done with it, she says, than waste her time in treatment.
Sunnen gently suggests that the woman look at the big picture and pick the option that might help her quit drugs.
"I can get clean and sober anytime I want," the woman responds. "That's easy."
"Is it?" asks Sunnen. "You're here."
"Thirty days'll clean me up."
"For those 30 days."
"I'm leaving," the woman announces, and she strides out of the courtroom.
"She's afraid," says Sunnen, who is, like many other treatment professionals, herself a recovering addict. "Getting clean is the scariest thing.
"She'll be back," Sunnen predicts, and she is right. Twenty minutes later the woman is sitting quietly against the back wall, clutching her paperwork to her chest, her eyes fixed on the Great Seal of the state of California over Judge Cunningham's head as she waits to be told how the court sees fit to heal her.
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There are two dominant views on drug addiction and how it should be handled: The first is that addiction is a disease like any other and should be tackled through treatment and prevention. The second is that drug use is a crime and should be dealt with through the array of threats and sanctions available to the criminal justice system.
For the past two decades, the latter approach has dominated American law and politics. As a result, the country's jails and prisons now house a half million drug offenders -- a more than tenfold increase since 1980 -- and another half million prisoners convicted of drug-related crimes. California has the largest prison population in the nation and the second-greatest number of drug offenders, after Texas. Prop. 36 represents an attempt to shed this dubious distinction by merging the two opposing approaches: treating addiction as if it were a disease, but within the context of a system that continues to define it as a crime.
Advocates of the measure marketed it as a means to cut costs. The nonpartisan state Legislative Analyst's Office bolstered this argument by estimating that Prop. 36 would save taxpayers $1.5 billion over the first five years: A prison bed in California costs more than $25,000 a year, while treatment averages $4,000.
