Drug Court gets stuck before it gets started

McHenry County is going to get its own drug court. This specialty court, modeled after (or before, considering how you look at it the Mental Health Court, will been notified that it will receive a substantial grant from the U.S. Bureau of Justice Adult Drug Court Discretionary Implementation Grant.

Judge Weech presides over the Mental Health Court and does a fine job. Judge Feetterer has been tapped to head the Drug Court. These are "specialty" courts, which deals with violators of certain laws and who have certain illnesses or conditions in their history. And the judges deal with them in special ways. These "special" ways are designed to encourage recovery and rehabilitation, and the judges don't expect to see the offenders back for "repeat business."

$305,717 is headed to McHenry County over the next three years. Now, what's the problem?

The County is, in effect, going to suck off $50,000/year by not giving the entire amount to the Drug Court but, instead, not creating a new position for a probation officer in the drug court. By tampering with the plan for the drug court, the County is setting in motion a plan to reduce the effectiveness of the court, before it even starts!

I doubt that the Feds thought about telling the County to keep its grubby little hands out of the cookie jar. If it didn't, it should have.

Of course, maybe this morning's newspaper article about the drug court was wrong. I hope so. I doubt it.