CHARLESTON, W.Va. — A recovering addict from Greenbrier County says he has a lot of support as he works to maintain his sobriety. “I can rely on people today, back then I couldn’t,” Eric Mazey from White Sulphur Springs said of his time as an addict.
Mazey is one of West Virginia’s first 1,000 drug court graduates — a group honored en masse Tuesday at the State Capitol during the Legislature’s Drug Court Day.
A ceremony marking the milestone included Gov. Earl Ray Tomblin, state Supreme Court Justice Brent Benjamin, Senate President Bill Cole (R-Mercer, 06) and 1st Judicial Circuit Judge Martin Gaughan who created West Virginia’s first adult drug court in 2005 in the Northern Panhandle with then-1st Circuit Chief Probation Officer Jim Lee.
Currently, there are 24 adult drug court programs serving 40 counties and 16 juvenile drug court programs serving 20 counties. In all, 581 people are active drug court participants. By July 1, 2016, adult drug courts will be established in all 55 counties.
Drug courts offer alternatives to jail and prison time for non-violent offenders who qualify. In those courts, intensive judicial supervision is combined with frequent drug testing and counseling to treat addictions that may have lead to crimes.
“The program is you’ve got to maintain sobriety and, when you backslide, there’s a punishment side to it and, when you don’t backslide, you get benefits,” said Justice Benjamin on Tuesday’s MetroNews “Talkline.”
According to state officials, the average cost per adult drug court participant in 2012-2013 was $7,100 compared to costs that would total $18,250 if that person was in jail or $26,448 if that person was in prison. During that same time, the cost per graduating juvenile drug court participant was $6,900 compared to the $96,000 it would have cost for a juvenile to be in a Division of Juvenile Services facility for the same timeframe.
Without intervention, Benjamin said drug recurrence rates for people locked up is as high as 80 percent while the rate is less than ten percent for graduates of West Virginia’s adult drug courts and 14 percent for graduates of the juvenile drug courts.
“It’s just great to have a program that not only helps the individual and families, but also saves taxpayers an estimated $21 million a year — just in saved incarceration costs,” Benjamin said.