Finding a new life with some help from drug court | The Republic

Finding a new life with some help from drug court The Republic

"PENDLETON, Ore. — Getting through and graduating from Umatilla County's Drug Court program isn't an easy feat. The program takes a minimum of nine months. Most people spend at least 350 days in drug court, and to graduate it takes an average of 516 days — a year and five months.

"It's not an easy program," said Mike Graber, program manager with Umatilla County Community Corrections. "It's not one folks can cheat their way through."

Drug court is funded through a $280,000 Oregon Criminal Justice Commission grant. Those entering drug court usually take it as an alternative to jail, prison or probation time, or another treatment program.

"I think any time you're looking at whether or not there was a good utilization of taxpayer funds to run a program, a lot of it is typically based on hard data that's run," Graber said.

And he knows a lot about hard data. Graber has prepared many reports and statistics on drug court, including a report on the five-year anniversary of the program, which happened this month. Graber can spout numbers of participants, numbers of graduates, numbers of arrests before and after drug court and percentages for all of the above.

But he said there is more to drug court than numbers.

He's seen people come in not wanting to give up a life of drugs. Some have to be forced into sobriety, but once the sobriety takes hold they begin to look at their lives in a different way, Graber said. They reestablish relationships with family members, hold down stable jobs and begin to leave the criminal justice system.

"While you may look at recidivism rates and continued sobriety and the cost of running a program, all that, at the end of the day, takes a back seat to the human stories that unfold in front of you," Graber said. "And it all makes it very, very worthwhile.""