Editorial: Drug court - A tool that's working
If there is one thing that our intensive reporting on the scourge of heroin in the suburbs has taught us over the past two decades, it's that heroin can ruin the lives of good people. Kids, adults, siblings, aunts and uncles, grandparents. It does not discriminate.
Well, it's taught us another: that these lives often can be salvaged and the battle is worth fighting.
From "The Hidden Scourge" in the late 1990s straight through to our 2014/2015 series, "Heroin in the Suburbs/Through Their Eyes," the Daily Herald has chronicled the stories of addiction, the ways in which suburbanites have tried to address the problem and now the stories of those behind the scenes waging that daily battle.
And one constant in that discussion has been the drug court concept, championed in the '90s by Kane County Judge Jim Doyle.
On Monday, staff writer Jessica Cilella, who with Marie Wilson have teamed up on our "Through Their Eyes" series, revisited the Kane County drug court through the eyes of Randy Reusch, its longtime probation supervisor.
It's Reusch who is the mother hen to those who go through the county's intensive 30-month program to wean participants off of drugs (heroin is a leading contributor and on the rise), and gives them new options, a new outlook and the tools to succeed. It's a structured, highly monitored tough love approach that has turned around many lives over the years. It's such a transformative process that people graduate with an actual ceremony.
"I have never met anybody in this program that deserved to die," Reusch told Cilella. "They were all good people with a sickness."
Drug court is not about rehabilitating criminals who happen to have drug problems. It is about helping addicts break away from their addictions so they no longer have to steal in order to feed their habits. There is a distinction. And a vetting process by the state's attorney's office makes the call. Forty-one applicants to the program last year were accepted; 31 were denied.
Joanna Fecteau, 22, of St. Charles, is one of those who made it through the program and graduated last month.
"They gave me a whole new life to live," she said. "It's completely different from any other probation program or court supervision. They're not only watching you, but they're giving you the tools to get your life back together."
Although Kane's was one of the first such programs in the state, drug courts now operate in Cook, DuPage, Lake and McHenry counties. There already are too many people in prison. Practically speaking, it's a lot cheaper to put someone through drug court than it is to stow them in prison.
But beyond that, how are we building a better society if we turn away from those who are seized by addiction when before it, they were leading promising lives?
Doing what we can to set those for whom crimes are the product of addiction on a better course is the right thing to do, and for that we thank those who continue to support and administer drug courts.