PEACHTREE CITY - Nearly two decades after the first drug court in the country formed, the sentencing alternative continues to grow more popular with judges, looking to cut down on familiar faces who cycle through their courtrooms.
"We must promote drug courts not as an experiment, but as the way of doing justice," West Huddleston, CEO of the National Association of Drug Court Professionals, told about 400 members of the state's judicial system at a conference near Atlanta.
In Georgia, the number of drug, DUI and other so-called "accountability" courts has climbed to 50, and more than 1,900 operate across the country.
The programs are run by teams of judges, prosecutors, defense attorneys and treatment specialists trained in addiction and substance abuse issues.
Although courts allow different types of offenders into the programs, charge different fees and mandate different lengths for each court-monitored program, they are based on the same model.
A defendant - usually a repeat offender who's faced several drunken driving or drug possession charges - is offered the chance to participate in the program by pleading guilty in exchange for less jail time, lower fines and fewer community-service hours.
But offenders also agree to probation periods as long as two years, when they attend individual counseling and group sessions and meet with the court teams about their progress - not just to get sober but to pull the rest of their lives together.
"It's a whole new process of the way the judge looks at sentencing," said Augusta Circuit Superior Court Judge James G. Blanchard Jr., who attended the conference to learn what other circuits have done.
Swayed by extensive research about the treatment courts' ability to rehabilitate certain offenders better than traditional jail time and probation, Blanchard wants to establish a felony drug court in Augusta, possibly within a year.
Augusta's State Court judges also are weighing whether to form a DUI court.
The programs rely on a system of incentives and sanctions to encourage offenders to change their lifestyles.
If they fail random drug tests, participants could spend a few days to a few weeks in jail, depending on factors such as how many times they have failed or whether they admit before taking the tests that they have been using.
"Then we have a plan. We don't just throw them in jail and let them back out," said Judge Amanda Williams, director of the Glynn/Camden Counties Drug Court.
While program participants might take up cell space in already crowded jails for a few days as part of their sanctions, it's far less time than under typical circumstances, Williams said.
"On probation for a positive drug screen, they're probably going to stay in jail 30 to 60 days in a lot of places before they even get a hearing," she said.
Since forming in 1998, the combined Glynn and Camden counties court has had more than 280 offenders finish out the two-year program. A third of the offenders who started dropped out before the end.
Leaving early means paying a $2,000 fine, serving 96 hours of community service and going back to jail to finish the initial sentence without the chance of parole.
Often the programs impact more than just the offender. "It's generational changes," Williams said. "Once you get one drug addict or alcoholic clean and sober ... the people in that family are brought out" of the cycle, too.
Chatham County's felony drug-court program now has about 70 participants, said Stephanie Ritzert, who serves as the program's probation liaison.
Prosecutors pick out candidates not just from lists of people accused of drug possession, but also other crimes, such as theft that were committed because the thief is dependent on drugs.
"I think the close contact and the structure definitely helps them, to a certain extent, stay out of trouble," Ritzert said.
Along with Georgia's drug courts, the state also has nearly a dozen DUI courts that focus on alcoholism.
Clarke County State Court Judge Kent Lawrence formed the Athens DUI court in 2001.
Lawrence, who started his 35-year career in the legal system as a patrol officer, said he saw firsthand the deadly effects of alcohol-related crashes.
He understands skepticism about moving from harsh sentences to treatment-based programs but now calls the approach the only thing he has seen work to cut down recidivism.
"Traditional sentences do not work for the high-risk, repeat offenders," he said. "The only time we saw them was after them came in on a new offense."
Lawrence said the Clarke County program, which has graduated more than 350 participants in the past six years, hasn't needed any outside funding since a federal grant provided start-up money. The program charges participants $56 a week to cover case management charges and counseling expenses.
Other accountability courts in Georgia also apply for grants from the federal government and rely on state or local funding to help pay for coordinator positions.
Lawrence has seen offenders with as many as 17 drunken driving convictions enroll in the program.
"The people who have the most convictions, ... they're the ones who turn around the quickest," he said.
