Not so long ago, Needra Bland lived for her "dope 'n' coke," and to pay for those heroin-and-cocaine cocktails she would shoplift meat or cash stolen checks, sell drugs or sell herself. Pennsylvania and Gold was her drug corner of choice; she flopped in stash houses while others reared her kids.
Now drug-free, she is reacquainted with her two children and living in a midtown Baltimore apartment. She's a member of the Baltimore drug court's first graduating class, and hers is just the kind of turnaround officials envisioned when they devised a program offering drug treatment to addicted, petty criminals.
But even as the $2.3 million Baltimore City Drug Treatment Court marks it first birthday this month by touting recoveries such as Ms. Bland's, the program is operating at barely a third of its 600-person capacity.
"What we're doing, I think we're doing correctly. If we had 600 in the program right now, I'd give it an A. But because we only have a third of that in the program now, I'll give it a B-," said Joseph H. H. Kaplan, administrative judge of the city Circuit Court and a member of the committee that oversees the drug court.
As Baltimore officials continue to discuss alternatives to the lock-'em-up approach to fighting drugs and crime, the launching of the drug court program in the district and circuit courts illustrates the challenges of rewiring the criminal justice system.
"This has been a learning experience for us in the first year," said Thomas H. Williams, a state Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services administrator who is project director for the drug court. "Sure, we'd all like to have big numbers, we'd all like to say we're helping a thousand people. But the reality of the situation is, you have to start all programs slowly and build up."
Launched with fanfare in March 1994, the program is designed to free jail cells for dangerous criminals by steering nonviolent, addicted criminals into drug treatment. But it wasn't until last month that the program, which is funded in large part by federal grants, reached 200 participants.
Tight standards
The tentative start results in part from tight eligibility standards prompted by fears of a public relations disaster if a participant committed a serious crime after being released to the streets.
Other reasons cited were a bottleneck blamed on the city prosecutor's office and a crack in the system allowing some eligible defendants to slip past the initial screening.
Drug court statistics show that more than 13,000 defendants had been screened by early February and that more than 11,000 were ineligible. Of the 200 who made it into the program, about 50 are listed as "delinquent," meaning they haven't complied with the terms of their treatment and, in some cases, have had warrants issued for their arrest. Officials said 22 have been kicked out of the program for failing to comply.
Seven participants will leave the program at its first "graduation" on March 23. Needra Bland says she'll be there.
"I earned it," she says. "For once in my life I have accomplished something on my own."
When the drug court opened a year ago, three addicts met the press. Like Ms. Bland, Wanda McMillion and Rosetta Nance described the program as a lifeline. All three vowed that their drug days were over.
Many relapses
But program administrators expected many participants to relapse -- 50 percent to 60 percent have tested positive for drugs in the first year, Mr. Williams said.
Ms. McMillion, placed on probation last March for shoplifting from a grocery store, returned to court March 3 to answer another shoplifting charge.
The 35-year-old East Baltimore woman was given an 18-month suspended sentence and ordered to perform 40 hours of community service but was allowed to remain in the drug court program.
Ms. Nance's future with the program is in question. In September, after her continued drug use while in the program led her to receive inpatient treatment, Ms. Nance was charged with shoplifting seafood from a supermarket. She pleaded guilty to the charge in November but was allowed to stay in the drug court program.
Then, she did not show up in court in January to explain why she had completed fewer than eight of the 50 hours of community service assigned to her. Although Judge Jamey H. Weitzman requested a warrant for her arrest, none was issued until March 9. Last night, Judge Weitzman said she has not received notice that the 30-year-old Northwest Baltimore woman has been apprehended.
Those two cases illustrate the inevitable frustrations that come with trying to help addicts, but prosecutor Deborah Marcus describes Ms. Bland's recovery as "gratifying."
Ms. Bland's probation agent, Neil Woodson, wrote in his reports, "She continues to amaze and strive. . . . Her recovery has been virtuous. . . . She lives life to the fullest."
He wrote that about a 32-year-old woman whose addiction was so severe that she neglected to seek treatment for the glaucoma that eventually cost her her right eye, a woman with a drug problem so debilitating that she was embarrassed to let her two children see her.
She still does not have custody of them but sees them frequently. She lives in a small, walk-up apartment with her boyfriend, also a former addict, and they encourage each other in their recoveries.
Victor White, her 11-year-old son, has a new pride in his mother.
"Now she's doing a good thing, not a bad thing," he said, playing with toys in her apartment. "Yesterday she took us to the movies."
Ms. Bland was asked about the other two women, whose recoveries had not been as successful.
'A constant fight'
"The program only works if you do it for yourself," she said. "It's a constant fight, but to me anything worth having is worth the fight."
The women's stories illustrate the expected range of responses to drug court treatment -- from recovery to relapse to flight.
But no one expected that the program would fall far short of capacity in its first year. Officials hope to fill all 600 slots by the end of the second year.
Some reasons for the slow start:
* Officials set strict standards for participants.
As initially drafted, restrictions on criminal backgrounds and charges barred many potential participants. For example, the screening eliminated anyone who had ever been arrested for a violent crime and anyone with a conviction for possession of drugs with intent to sell within the past five years.
The standards have been relaxed so that disqualification is based on a conviction for a violent crime, not just an arrest, within the past five years.
But even now, anyone with a felony drug conviction within the past five years cannot get into the District Court program, which has stricter eligibility standards than the Circuit Court program.
Public safety is the stated reason for the tight restrictions. But several judges and administrators acknowledge another reason: avoiding the controversy that would come if someone placed on the streets under the program committed a violent crime.
Judge Weitzman, who presides over drug court in the District Court, defended the cautious approach: "I would rather err on the side of caution than just open the door to have higher numbers."
Mr. Williams and the judge said they underestimated the degree of violence found in the criminal records of many of those arrested in Baltimore. Still, Mr. Williams said, local officials won't make the same mistake that was made in Miami, where the program that inspired drug courts across the nation has been criticized for releasing violent criminals.
* Some potential candidates aren't identified until they are about to be sentenced, when it is too late.
Inmates who don't make bail are screened for the program, as are defendants released after a bail review hearing and placed under the supervision of state pretrial release officials.
But anyone who is released on recognizance by a District Court commissioner or makes the bail set by the commissioner before a court bail review is not screened.
* Savvy defendants know they can often go to court and get a sentence that is less demanding than the rigors of the drug court program.
"Of the 200 people, they were either fairly dedicated or they didn't know the system," said Mary Ellen T. Rinehardt, administrative judge of the city District Court. "Knowing you can get a better deal is going to be hard to change."
* Until recently, the Baltimore state's attorney's office, which had assigned only one prosecutor to the program, slowed the assessment process.
"My theory is if you sign on to something, if you think it's worthwhile, you have to eat some of the costs, give some of your resources," Judge Rinehardt said. "I don't think the state's attorney was willing to do it."
May have slowed program
Patricia C. Jessamy, who took over as Baltimore state's attorney last month, conceded that having only one prosecutor might have slowed the program but said she is not sure that kept the numbers down.
Another prosecutor has been assigned to the District Court drug program, she said.
* The program did not start in the city Circuit Court until October.
Judge Joseph P. McCurdy Jr., who has handled the drug court docket for the Circuit Court, said there are about 30 people in that program now. He expects 100 by summer.
Still, Judge McCurdy said, operating below capacity has a bright side.
"I'm still happily enjoying that part of the program and not anticipating a year or two from now, when we have to tell people there's no room for them."