The RAVE Act

Suzanne Wills, Drug Policy Chair

February, 2003

Judges know that the drug war doesn’t work. Judge James P. Gray begins every section of his excellent book, Why Our Drug Laws Have Failed and What We Can Do About It, with a quotation from a judge. In The Case Against Lawyers, Catherine Crier, a former judge from Dallas, entitles her chapter on the drug war, “Addicted to Insanity.” Three Dallas judges, District Judge John Creuzot, Judge Janice Warder and Judge Robert Francis, are working to rehabilitate nonviolent drug offenders one person at a time.

In 1998, Judge Creuzot, together with probation officials, started the Dallas Initiative for Diversion and Expedited Rehabilitation and Treatment. The aim of the program is to prevent crime, save money and change lives for the better. Instead of traditional adjudication addicts are given 12 to 18 months of intense supervision, counseling, and treatment including weekly face-to-face sessions with the judges. After successful completion, the offender’s case is dismissed.

Results have been impressive. A recidivism study by Monica Turley and Ashley Sibley of the Psychology Department at SMU found that of 100 of the first graduates from the program only 16 were charged with new crimes within two years. In contrast, nearly half the control group of offenders who had served sentences were re-arrested on drug-related charges within one year. A cost-benefit analysis study by Dr. Thomas Fomby and Vasudha Rangaprasad of the Economics Department at SMU found that for every dollar spent on DIVERT $9.43 was saved in prison and court costs over 40 months. They point out that this savings does not include loss of property, personal injury, public assistance to families of inmates and other social costs associated with crime.

Judge Warder says, “It’s just a smart way to rehabilitate drug abusers. Take the ones who can change so we don’t have to warehouse them in the penitentiary, because prison is not the most effective way to deal with drug addiction.”

In spite of measurable success, DIVERT’s future is uncertain. The program is supported by federal grant money and $300,000 in matching county funds. The federal grant runs out in August.

Sources: Tim Wyatt, Dallas Morning News

Fomby and Rangaprasad, DIVERT Court of Dallas County Cost-Benefit Analysis