Drug Court

Purnell Parker remembers when his drug addiction was so bad that he ate nothing but peanut brittle for an entire summer because he was broke. But for more than a year, Parker has not used drugs. The 38-year-old Baltimore man wears a medallion that serves as a symbol of his recovery and to remind him of his new life - along with a seemingly perpetual smile. And after getting the upper hand on his dependency, he says, he is resolved to help others facing the same struggle. "When I was using, if you couldn't tell me where the next best corner was, I didn't have [anything]

Seventeen months ago, Jennifer R. Hart was sitting in a jail cell, a heroin addict whose downward spiral began in earnest when she worked late nights in a Baltimore restaurant surrounded by drugs and alcohol. Her drug use began with alcohol and marijuana, she said. Before it was over, she had developed a dependency on the potent painkiller OxyContin, which lured her to heroin. "The physical addiction to heroin is the worst pain I've ever felt," she said. "I didn't really know what it was when I first tried it, and it was cheaper than OxyContin."

Some compared the mood inside the Baltimore courtroom to a church revival.The crowd of more than 200, dressed in their Wednesday best, laughed, cheered, cried and offered an occasional amen as six speakers talked about how their lives have been affected by drug court.Drug court, a program that lets nonviolent offenders exchange jail time for drug treatment, celebrated its fifth birthday at Baltimore City Circuit Courthouse East yesterday.In addition to many of the graduates, Lt. Gov. Kathleen Kennedy Townsend offered her views on the program.

County Executive John G. Gary's announcement that he would spend $1.37 million in surplus county funds to beef up drug treatment and prevention didn't make much of a splash in December.But a questionnaire and a letter describing the program and offering more information got people's attention when they were sent to every county household at the end of March. Critics called the mailing a waste of taxpayer money.But Gary points to the more than 2,400 requests for information as proof that his $56,479 mailing was effective.

Losing out on a federal grant to establish a juvenile drug court in Carroll County should have no serious impact on the court for now, but authorities say the need won't go away.Juvenile authorities in Carroll had applied for a two-year, $380,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Justice that would have enabled the county's juvenile services office to hire two investigators and two counselors at Junction Inc., a Westminster drug and alcohol treatment center.Teaming with the county's juvenile master, the new employees would identify and closely monitor about 50 young offenders, said David J. Tucker, the county's supervisor for the state's Department of Juvenile Justice.

A new drug court making its debut in the Glen Burnie District courthouse is an alternative to the 1980s' lock-them-up style of fighting drugs and crime that has taken root across the country.First tested in Miami eight years ago as an experiment with drug-abusing first offenders, drug courts have spread to about 30 other cities.Prosecutors and treatment specialists tout them as the best way to halt drug abuse, which has led to increased crime in metropolitan areas and overburdened jails and prisons.

Lapses of supervision and missing information taint a series of cases in the city's drug treatment court, one of the state's model criminal justice programs, an internal audit has found.The Aug. 20 audit, reviewed this week by The Sun, is the latest examination of the Alternative Sentencing Unit, a Baltimore community supervision program that handles about a third of the drug treatment court cases.Problems uncovered in the reviews have led to the reassignment of Thomas E. Kirk, administrator of the 8-year-old Alternative Sentencing Unit.

For his graduation, Alexander Sade got a certificate and probation before judgment.Sade, 28, a concrete mixer from Arnold, is among the first graduates of Anne Arundel County's drug court, a tough-love program aimed at treating, rather than incarcerating, drug users.On his graduation day Tuesday, he stood speechless in a District Court room in Annapolis, enjoying the applause of Judge Joseph P. Manck and an audience of about 80."It felt good," Sade said. "It makes you feel good."Sade was arrested in May on charges of possession of marijuana and drug paraphernalia.

Baltimore City Circuit Judge David Mitchell sat on the panel and uttered -- on this day of media-bashing -- seeming heresy."You have to be sure the media are available to grasp what you do," Mitchell told the gathering at the symposium on sentencing sponsored by the American Judicature Society in San Diego. "The media have a responsibility to educate the public. If you are fair and honest with them, they're going to reciprocate."As if he were determined to drag symposium participants kicking and screaming back to reality, Mitchell continued to be a gadfly, chastising those who thought the main problems with sentences were judges.

The first outside evaluation of Baltimore's 2-year-old drug-treatment court has found that participants were substantially less likely to be arrested for new crimes than they would have been without the experimental program.Although the results of the study, which are being released at a news conference today, are preliminary, the evaluation's author and those who run the drug court say the statistics show the project is on the right track.Baltimore's version of drug court there are at least 30 around the country is a blend of law enforcement and tough love in which District Court and Circuit Court judges order participants into treatment instead of prison.

Purnell Parker remembers when his drug addiction was so bad that he ate nothing but peanut brittle for an entire summer because he was broke. But for more than a year, Parker has not used drugs. The 38-year-old Baltimore man wears a medallion that serves as a symbol of his recovery and to remind him of his new life - along with a seemingly perpetual smile. And after getting the upper hand on his dependency, he says, he is resolved to help others facing the same struggle. "When I was using, if you couldn't tell me where the next best corner was, I didn't have [anything]

Purnell Parker remembers when his drug addiction was so bad that he ate nothing but peanut brittle for an entire summer because he was broke. But for more than a year, Parker has not used drugs. The 38-year-old Baltimore man wears a medallion that serves as a symbol of his recovery and to remind him of his new life - along with a seemingly perpetual smile. And after getting the upper hand on his dependency, he says, he is resolved to help others facing the same struggle. "When I was using, if you couldn't tell me where the next best corner was, I didn't have [anything]

Crime and drugs go hand-in-hand in Baltimore, and both problems are exacerbated by the inability of some city judges to properly evaluate a defendant's drug problem and the lack of sufficient treatment options, particularly for those who commit crimes to support their habit. That reality is reinforced by local judges who vented their frustration about how the criminal justice system handles low-level, nonviolent drug offenders in a new study by a Washington-based think tank. Fixing the problem could save lives.

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development has awarded more than $1.6 million in federal grant money for services for the homeless, County Executive John R. Leopold announced last week. The agency is sending: $858,142 to provide housing vouchers and support services to more than 65 disabled individuals and families through programs operated by the Housing Commission of Anne Arundel County, the Anne Arundel County Mental Health Agency and the Maryland Mental Hygiene Administration.

Two judges widely heralded for pioneering Anne Arundel County District Court programs are retiring in the span of a month. Administrative Judge James W. "Jack" Dryden will step down July 31, a week after his 60th birthday, while Judge Vincent A. Mulieri, who turns 69 today, retired June 30. Their vacancies on the nine-judge court are unlikely to be filled soon, as Gov. Martin O'Malley has not created any of the county panels needed to screen judicial replacements....

Seventeen months ago, Jennifer R. Hart was sitting in a jail cell, a heroin addict whose downward spiral began in earnest when she worked late nights in a Baltimore restaurant surrounded by drugs and alcohol. Her drug use began with alcohol and marijuana, she said. Before it was over, she had developed a dependency on the potent painkiller OxyContin, which lured her to heroin. "The physical addiction to heroin is the worst pain I've ever felt," she said. "I didn't really know what it was when I first tried it, and it was cheaper than OxyContin."

I know what happens to certain judges of the District Court of Maryland. Boredom starts to build. I have seen the eyes of brilliant men and women glaze on the District Court bench, as they listen to traffic cases or arguments between neighbors or testimony about yet another drug case. If you look hard enough, you can see etched in the glaze the question: "Is this why I went to law school?" Certain judges of the District Court try to enliven things with sardonic levity -- and there was a time, perhaps fully in the past, when this humor was, if not appreciated, certainly accepted.

This Friday, Judge Michael M. Galloway of the Carroll County Circuit Court is scheduled to take the bench as usual, but he will be presiding over a different kind of court. An adult drug treatment court is coming to Carroll, geared toward the county's nonviolent offenders with consistent substance-abuse problems. Described by many as intensive, with regular and frequent monitoring, the program tailors treatment and services to individuals, and then places responsibility on them to reduce and eventually eliminate their drug use. "The biggest thing the drug court brings to the treatment process ... is to respond immediately when people stumble or slip or relapse," as opposed to waiting months for a hearing, Galloway said.

Participants in the Harford County juvenile drug court had 36 percent fewer subsequent arrests than nonparticipants, and 59 percent fewer days on probation or parole, according to an independent study commissioned by the state court system. The study, conducted by NPC Research of Portland, Ore., also found that the average cost to the criminal justice system as measured by rearrests, incarcerations, and probation was 60 percent less for participants in the year following their involvement in drug court.

Icalled the other day for an expanded attack on the drug addiction that fuels the drug trade that fuels the violence that fuels the decline - or at least delays the progress - of the quality of life in Baltimore. It's a burden on the entire metropolitan area, on the whole state. Drug addiction has been placed at the root of 80 percent of crime. It's the reason our prisons are filled. It's why we have neighborhood crime patrols, why our courts are crazy-busy. In many cases, drug addiction is at the root of family dysfunction, and family dysfunction - compounded by poverty, ignorance, unemployment - is at the root of the cycle of failure of children and schools.