BY JANE PRENDERGAST
The Cincinnati Enquirer
COVINGTON -- Kenton County's drug court is catching on slowly, but officials still tout it as the best new way to help drug users break the cycle. Seven people were in various stages of the treatment process as of last week.
"It's developing slowly," said Circuit Judge Greg Bartlett, who presides over the cases. "But that's OK. We knew that would happen."
The court began two months ago, but it has taken some time to collect referrals from other judges' dockets and evaluate those people to determine if they seemed like a good fit for the program. It is aimed at non-violent, repeat drug users whose other alternative is jail.
Candidates are evaluated by trained substance abuse counselors at Transitions, a Northern Kentucky agency. Defendants must agree to get and hold a job as well as spend as much as six hours a day in treatment classes. Those without jobs spend more time in job training and job retention workshops.
The idea: Relieve some of the court system's growing caseload of repeat drug offenders by getting them help rather than locking them up.
"Their days are pretty much consumed with either work, treatment or sleep," said Karen Hargett, Transitions' director of operations. "We're making them be accountable."
Kenton County's drug court is among four operating in the commonwealth. The first, in Jefferson County, began five years ago and has graduated 115 people.
One study there found the rate for the first 60 graduates to be arrested again was 13 percent. That compared to almost 60 percent for program dropouts and defendants who chose not to participate. Analyses now are under way of the Fayette and Jefferson programs by the University of Kentucky and University of Louisville, respectively. The first drug court in the United States began in Miami in 1989. Since then, the idea has been catching on, with drugs-only courts operating in at least 29 states and the District of Columbia, according to a U.S. Department of Justice Web site.
Transitions hopes to boost understanding of the program and interest in it with a training program later this month for defense attorneys.
"It has not reached its full potential yet," Ms. Hargett said. "But we know that it will. We just have to spread the word about what it is."
Both she and Judge Bartlett have noticed one benefit of the program already, more understanding of both sides of a person's drug problem -- legal and medical. The judge returned last week from a conference where he learned about the physiological affects of drug abuse, and Ms. Hargett said Transitions workers are learning how the legal system works and why.
That increasingly common marriage of disciplines will work in Kenton County too, the judge said, over time.
