Experimental Drug Court Program Heads for Westside : Law: Project seeks to break offenders’ cycle of arrest, court, jail and more arrests through treatment. Criminal charges for those who complete the year are suspended.

Drug court, the experimental program that suspends criminal charges for addicts who complete a year of treatment, is headed for the Westside.

Santa Monica Superior Court administrators, inspired by a recent statewide conference on the drug court concept, are lining up funding and health care providers to emulate the program that started six months ago in Downtown Los Angeles.

Judge Richard Neidorf has been chosen to preside over the court-supervised rehabilitation program, which administrators hope will encompass Santa Monica, Malibu, Beverly Hills, Culver City and West Los Angeles.

“The minute we heard the crime bill was passed in Washington and we knew there was money for drug programs, we jumped for joy,” Neidorf said. “They told me I was going to do it and we were going to start as soon as we could.”

A portion of the $29 million allocated by the federal crime bill will be made available early next year for drug court programs across the nation. That development has prompted many courts to start planning programs that would make them eligible for a share of the money.

Santa Monica court administrator Joi Sorensen, the project manager, said she is arranging meetings with presiding judges on the Westside to start a regional drug court by early spring. Still to be worked out are ways to supplement the federal funds and establish rules for handling criminal charges.

The one-year pilot program that started in Downtown Los Angeles in May relies on the cooperation of prosecutors and public defenders, $225,000 from the county, and donated counseling from the Impact Drug and Alcohol Treatment Center.

The center, based in Pasadena, provides counseling, drug testing, acupuncture treatment and, when necessary, residential care for defendants who qualify for the program and volunteer to participate. The treatment is supplemented by mandatory Narcotics Anonymous or Alcoholics Anonymous meetings.

Although administrators have not located a similar treatment program for the Westside drug court, Sorensen said the Clare Foundation in Santa Monica has volunteered.

“It will be a grass roots thing,” Sorensen said. “We hope we can work with the Probation Department and (health care) providers to put something together.”

Much of the groundwork has been done by the founders of the program in Los Angeles Municipal Court, which has enrolled more than 100 people who were arrested for drug possession.

Those who are charged with selling narcotics do not qualify for the program, nor do defendants who have been convicted of violent felonies or sex crimes. The mentally ill are also disqualified.

Supporters of the concept see the court-monitored treatment, including daily urine tests and frequent appearances before a judge, as the only hope for breaking the cycle of arrest, court, jail and more arrests.

“If I just throw them in jail, when they get out you know they’re going to use (drugs) again,” said Neidorf, a former narcotics agent and prosecutor. “Jail hasn’t worked in the past, except that the time they’re in jail I know they’re not stealing from Thrifty.”

In the drug court program, criminal charges are reinstated when a participant repeatedly fails urine tests or shirks other requirements, such as attending 12-Step meetings.

Judge Stephen A. Marcus, who oversees the Los Angeles court, estimates about half the participants will succeed. His drug court draws addicts from the South-Central, MacArthur Park and Rampart-Hollenbeck areas of Los Angeles.

Although the courts have been using 12-week education programs to divert offenders from the criminal justice system, that approach does not work with acute cases of addiction, drug court advocates say.

The drug court movement, which started in Florida, has spawned programs in Oakland, Bakersfield, San Bernardino and El Monte as well as Los Angeles.

“Am I optimistic we’re going to have a great success rate? The answer is no,” Neidorf said.

“But, yes, I am going to try this and give it my best shot, because nothing else is working.”