By Mari A. Schaefer
The Philadelphia Inquirer
PHILADELPHIA — Angela Kaye’s trip to drug addiction started when she used marijuana and alcohol as a teen. It escalated to prescription drug abuse, led to heroin use, petty crime and jail time, and ended in a Delaware County courtroom.
“Treatment Court saved my life,” said Kaye, 31, of Upper Chichester. She is now a counselor for a company that specializes in peer support for mental health and substance abuse disorders.
Kaye was given the choice of prison or drug treatment court. Kaye chose the court — and graduated.
“She is what our program is about,” said Linda Barbera, Treatment Court coordinator.
Delaware County’s Treatment Court is one of three specialty courts run by the county in which judges, prosecutors, parole officers, social workers and addiction treatment specialists team up to address the specific needs of nonviolent offenders with addictions.
Since its inception in 2008, about 85 percent of the Treatment Court graduates have not had further encounters with the judicial system. That’s better than the national rate, about 75 percent, for the 2,700 such courts in the country, according to the National Association of Drug Court Professionals. Montgomery County’s rate is near the national average, while the rates in Bucks and Chester counties are considerably better.
“It doesn’t matter if you are the richest person or the poorest person, no one is immune,” Barbera said. She has lately been seeing more teens from Main Line schools caught up in drugs, she said.
Barbera estimates that about 90 percent of the clients have been in rehab multiple times before coming to Treatment Court. About 55 percent of the people who opt into the program complete it, she said.
“The primary focus is to give them a chance to make a new life,” said Senior Judge Frank T. Hazel, a trial judge for 35 years.
Barbera said the court is a money-saver, as it costs $67 a day to keep an inmate in the county prison. The national figures for cost savings range from $3,000 to $13,000, through cutting the costs of arrests, trials and imprisonment.
Delaware County’s treatment court has two tracks.
Participants spend a minimum of two years to advance through the five phases of the program. They also need to be in school or working and attending a community-based program such as Alcoholics Anonymous or Narcotics Anonymous.
“This is not an easy program,” Barbera said. “There are a lot of consequences here.”
During a recent court appearance before Hazel, a young man in a green polo shirt sauntered up to the bench for a review of his status.
The client, a local college student, had been asked by Treatment Court to talk with adolescents in another program about staying clean. But his probation officer reported that the student had been out drinking numerous times.
Hazel looked at his file and let loose. “We trusted you,” the judge yelled at the young man. “The only thing that surpasses my anger in you is my disappointment.”
He ordered a weekend in jail. “One day for using, and one day for the trust we put in you and what you did with it,” the judge snapped.
Hazel was just as quick to pass out praise or encouragement to other clients.
“You are just not doing well, you’re an asset to others,” Hazel said to a client who agreed to help out another addict. “We respect what you are doing.”
Joseph DiTomo, 38, of Broomall, has been an addict for 20 years and was facing prison when the judge let him attend an Alcoholics Anonymous convention in Ohio. It wasn’t until Treatment Court that he was able to take responsibility for his actions and addiction, DiTomo said.
“My head is in a different world than two years ago,” DiTomo said. He hopes to graduate in October.
Kaye wasn’t sure she could make it through the program without the support of her mother, Barbara Kaye-Ross, and the Treatment Court staff.
She lives with her 7-year-old son in an apartment, has a full-time job she “loves” and is dating. She often returns to the court to talk with others going through the program.
“I am very grateful,” Kaye said. “They give you the tools to succeed in life.”
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