CHARLESTON, W.Va. (AP) — Five new drug courts that will handle nonviolent offenders are scheduled to open across West Virginia this year.

The new programs will serve Greenbrier and Pocahontas counties, and Kanawha, Cabell, Monongalia and Preston counties.

Drug courts typically require nonviolent offenders to undergo treatment and be supervised for at least a year or 18 months. The goal is to place drug offenders in a structured environment that gives them an opportunity to change their lives, said Linda Richmond Artimez, administrative counsel of mental hygiene services for the state Supreme Court.

“It gives these folks a support system around them in the actual community where they will be living, a means of changing their life so that they don’t have to go back to criminal activity,” she said.

State officials have said such courts could help West Virginia’s inmate population problem. West Virginia has more than 1,000 inmates being held in the state’s 10 regional jails rather then in a state prison. The situation is expected to get worse because the state’s inmate population is projected to surpass 7,000 by 2012.

State statistics show that 80 percent of inmates have a drug or alcohol problem, but only 20 percent were charged with a drug-related crime.

The first drug court in the nation was created in Miami-Dade County, Fla. in 1989. There are now nearly 2,000 in operation across the nation, according to the National Drug Court Institute.

West Virginia’s first drug court opened in the Northern Panhandle in 2005. According to the state Supreme Court, drug courts also have been created to serve Boone, Lincoln, Logan, Mercer, Wirt and Wood counties. Drug courts for juveniles have been established in Cabell and Wayne counties.

“These are not easy programs,” Artimez said. “These are programs that require work, but give people a real opportunity to turn their lives around, and not be slaves to drugs and alcohol.”

Not everyone supports the creation of such courts. In December, newly elected Raleigh County Prosecutor Kristen Keller told the county’s commission that neither her staff nor the judges nor law enforcement officials have time to act as “therapists.” Keller was responding to a proposal to create a drug court in Raleigh County.

Last month, the Supreme Court created a seven-member commission to review prison and jail conditions in West Virginia. The panel is expected to review drug courts and whether they should be expanded. The commission will be given up to two years to make its recommendations to the five justices.

 

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