Burdened with the $1,800 a day cost of housing an overflow of inmates at other jails and a relentless flow of addicts being arrested, Schuylkill County is hoping a drug court will ease the pain.

County commissioners on Wednesday approved Judge James P. Goodman's request to apply for a $350,000 federal grant to create the intensive, treatment-oriented program."Seventy percent of our crime is drug-related," he said.The county would contribute the required $116,000, or 25 percent, matching funds which may be cash or in-kind matched funds.The grant, through the U.S. Department of Justice, would pay for a full-time probation officer, and a part-time assistant district attorney, public defender or drug and alcohol counselor for the program, Goodman told commissioners.A previous Department of Justice grant will pay for three days of training, scheduled for the end of July, Goodman said.That's for the treatment court members, that's the district attorney, the public defenders, adult probation, drug and alcohol treatment employees and court administration.The training will allow the county to apply for other grants, Goodman said."We're hoping to get this drug court up and running by the end of the year or the beginning of next year," he said.Commissioner Frank J. Staudenmeier said the program is a step forward."This initiative has proved to work very well in other counties in the Commonwealth," he said.Of the state's 67 counties, 32 now have drug courts, including Northampton, Lehigh, Berks, Columbia, Dauphin and Luzerne counties.Why a drug court?The court would help reduce the crime rate, which Goodman said has been increasing every year."Last year, it was 2,600. Five years ago, it was about 1,800," he said."I calculated roughly 46 percent of the criminal complaints that were filed in 2015 involved driving under the influence, driving under the influence of drugs, or were drug related. Out of the first 500 cases in 2015, 158 were strictly drug related. The top drug is heroin, followed by methamphetamine," said District Attorney Christine A. Holman."It's become an old saying, 'we can't arrest our way out of this problem.' Our prison is stuffed," she said.Both Holman and Goodman said the drug court would help alleviate overcrowding at the county jail.The average daily population in the aging county prison in Pottsville is about 300. That's more than the jail's 277 inmate capacity."We're trying to address that by rehabilitating drug offenders," Goodman said.The state has required the county to send the overflow of inmates to other prisons until it arrives at a permanent solution to the crowding.President Judge William E. Baldwin at a prison board meeting Wednesday said it's costing the county $1,800 a day to do that.Baldwin has been pushing for a pre-release center to alleviate the overcrowding.How it worksThe drug court would be for nonviolent offenders, said Goodman, who would preside over the drug court.A person charged with a crime, who also is addicted to drugs, would go before the drug court. If qualified, the person would plead guilty to the charge, then go into a treatment program. The type of treatment depends on the person.Private insurance or Medicaid would pay for the treatment, Goodman said."There is funding out there they would qualify for," he said.The offender would meet with Goodman and the drug court team once a week so they could monitor his progress."They would also be tested on a weekly basis to make sure they are clean," Goodman said.The program works on a carrot-and-stick method."It's basically a program of rewards and sanctions," he said.Most offenders would stay in the program for 18 months, he said."The big thing for them is that if they complete it successfully, they can have these charges gone from their record," Goodman said. "That's the big carrot."The originGoodman said a committee, which includes Holman and drug and alcohol treatment director Melissa Chewey, has worked for the past 18 months to see if the program would work in Schuylkill."We visited drug courts in other counties, and we had presentations done," Goodman said.The work continues. Goodman said the committee plans to visit more counties to see how they handle their drug courts.Holman said she wants to determine how people become addicted, to get at the root cause of the problem, and the intense one-on-one nature of the program will help."I want to get to know what was that turning point? How did it happen? I think the only way we're going to be able to correct the problem and get people on a different track is by being right there when they are ready to turn," she said. "Right there, we've got to get them before they get hooked."