FAYETTEVILLE -- Expansion of drug courts should be a priority for Arkansas' next attorney general, the two main-party candidates for the office said Thursday.
At a meeting of the Political Animals Club of Northwest Arkansas, Republican Leslie Rutledge and Democrat Nate Steel briefly ran through their resumes and hit the high points of their platforms. Both support capital punishment, aggressively prosecuting cybercrimes, protecting people from consumer fraud and expanding the state's drug courts.
"Drug courts work," said Steel, a state representative from Nashville. "The data is in. We've been doing drug courts for a while, and we know drug courts save us more money than they cost."
It costs the state $4.50 per day for an offender to participate in a drug court program, according to the Arkansas judiciary website, courts.arkansas.gov. Incarcerating a person in a state prison costs $63 a day, said Dina Tyler, deputy director for the Arkansas Department of Community Correction.
There are 17,380 people in Arkansas prisons, including 2,297 who are in county jails waiting for room in state prisons, Tyler said. There are 2,305 people enrolled in the state's 41 drug courts, she said.
Drug courts save more money in the long run by breaking the cycle of repeat offenses, Steel said. That, in turn, will help reduce the state's prison population, he said.
The purpose of drug court programs is to divert offenders into a "strenuous treatment program" that includes frequent drug testing, required employment, treatment and counseling, and regular court appearances to monitor compliance, according to the Arkansas judiciary website. The programs are for people addicted to alcohol or illicit drugs.
Rutledge told the crowd of about 160 people at the Guest House Inn in Fayetteville that drug courts for veterans are particularly important.
"What we don't need are individuals coming back from fighting for our freedoms and finding themselves in a prison," she said. "Our prison population, our jail population, is out of control, but what we need are working with these prosecutors, working with these judges to make sure that people are aware that we have the resources."
Beyond the financial savings, drug courts change people's lives, Rutledge said.
"It's not just about the money, the expense of putting people in jails," she said. "We have to change lives and have productive citizens in our society."
Rutledge is a Little Rock lawyer who worked for the Arkansas Court of Appeals and served as counsel to former Gov. Mike Huckabee.
Adult drug courts aren't available in every county, but they should be, Steel said.
"Unfortunately, a lot of our drug courts have gone to districts where a key legislator or a key judge got the funding for the drug court, not necessarily where the drug crimes are," he said. "So we need to do a better job of making sure drug courts are statewide."
According to a map on the Arkansas judiciary's website, 18 of Arkansas' 75 counties aren't served by adult drug courts.
The counties where adult drug courts aren't available are: Lee, Cross, Monroe, Phillips and Woodruff counties in the 1st Judicial Circuit; Clay, Mississippi and Poinsett counties in the 2nd Judicial Circuit; Sharp County in the 3rd Judicial Circuit; Franklin County in the 5th Judicial Circuit; Lincoln County in Judicial Circuit 11 West; Calhoun, Cleveland and Dallas counties in the 13th Judicial Circuit; Scott County in the 15th Judicial Circuit; Prairie County in the 17th Judicial Circuit; Searcy and Van Buren counties in the 20th Judicial Circuit.
People in those counties can be sentenced to drug court in an adjacent county in the same judicial circuit, but that's often impractical, Steel said. People sentenced for drug offenses often don't have the money for transportation to other counties, he said.
"I really think we need a drug court in every county if possible," Steel said. "That may require initial investment, but as we've seen with investment in drug courts in the past, it will save costs in the long term."
Aaron Cash of Springdale, the Libertarian Party candidate for attorney general, didn't speak at the Political Animals meeting on Thursday.
NW News on 07/18/2014