Arizona DUI/Drug Diversion Gets $200K

Flagstaff, Arizona resident Donna Falz had been drinking vodka that day in October 2003.

Her two daughters, ages 4 and 8 at the time, were in the vehicle with her. The accident happened while she tried to exit from Interstate 40 onto Milton Road. She doesn't remember what her blood-alcohol level was at the time, but she was drunk.

"Of course when you're in it you think you're not drunk," she said. "It was a pretty bad accident."

Her oldest daughter lost two fingers on her left hand.

"I was looking at prison time," she said. She would be taken away from her daughters.

Instead of prison in Arizona, Falz pleaded guilty into the county's DUI/Drug Diversion Court. She said she has the DUI/Drug Court, an alternative to prison, to thank for helping her get her life back from the grim grip of alcohol.

Now the program will be available to even more people, because DUI/Drug Diversion Court has received funding from the federal government to expand its services.

The U.S. Department of Justice awarded the Coconino County DUI/Drug Diversion Court a two-year grant of $200,000, according to a press release issued last week.

Brad Mattingly, director of DUI/Drug Diversion Court, said the grant will allow the local program to expand from 100 participants a year to 133. About two-thirds of the participants have graduated, with the remaining one-third having washed out and been given prison sentences.

DUI/Drug Diversion Court in Arizona is a 10-month, four-phase program that was created more than four years ago. The program's aim is rehabilitating non-violent offenders accused of alcohol- and drug-related crimes through regular drug testing and individual and group counseling. Drug Court has the ability to invoke immediate punishments for those who stray, and offer incentives for those who do well.

It allows judges, prosecutors, defense attorneys, substance abuse treatment specialists, probation officers and more to work together and support the offenders in dealing with substance abuse problems.

DUI/Drug Court Judge Mark Moran said funds will give the program more flexibility and allow for more participants.

"It's a reflection on the hard work of our Drug Court team," Moran said, because only about 20 percent of the applicants received funding.

The program was one of 350 applicants nationwide. About 70 applicants were awarded funding, Mattingly said.

The current budget for the program is $180,000 to $200,000, Mattingly said. The budget comes from grants from Fill the Gap funds and DUI Abatement from the Arizona Criminal Justice Commission.

Mattingly said that the expansion of DUI/Drug Arizona Court will happen in two areas. The first is number of participants. The program now serves about 100 participants a year. Mattingly said the hope is to expand the program by about 30 percent and to include an extra probation officer.

The second is the inclusion of aid for housing, transportation, job and GED training, and cultural programming. Because 45 percent of the participants are Native American, the program will begin to offer sweat lodges and talking circles.

The inclusion of the aid is important, Mattingly said, because if participants can't take care of their basic needs like food, clothing, and shelter, sobriety will be low on their priority list.

Housing has been a struggle, in the initial stages of the program, for most of the participants.

The goal of the Arizona DUI/Drug Court is to keep the offenders out of jail or prison, keep them sober and help them become contributing members of the community, Mattingly said.

About 70 percent of the participants are in the program for felony DUI offenses. The remaining 30 percent are drug offenders who have committed crimes related to their addiction.

Since the program began, about 67 percent -- 110 people -- of all the participants have graduated from the program.

The 33 percent who failed did so because they continued using alcohol or drugs, failed to attend program requirements, or had mental health issues, Mattingly said.

"The program gives us an alternative approach to working with repeat offenders who are alcoholics or drug addicts," Mattingly said. "We're trying to take people who are liabilities to the community and making them assets."

In some cases, the program is more effective than jail, Mattingly said. The program is less expensive than jail, costing about a third of what it costs to house an inmate in jail or prison for a year.

There are no figures on the success rate of the program after graduation, Mattingly said. But a study of DUI/Drug courts nationally revealed that a year after graduation, approximately 16 percent of the 17,000 graduates were rearrested.

As for Falz, she said the Arizona DUI/Drug Court staff taught her to forgive herself and gave her the skills to live a life without alcohol. She graduated from the program in March. She said she's been sober for two years.

Falz said she still feels remorse for her daughter's injury and doesn't want to let it go because that remorse helps keep her sober. It's a reminder, she said, adding that the program was a second chance at life.

"It also showed me that people understand the disease of addiction and that there are people out there who want to help," Falz said.

Falz said she was excited to hear the program received funding to expand in Arizona.

"I'm so glad they got the grant because there's so many people out there who will now get help," she said.