Any judge will tell you that the overwhelming majority of the criminal cases they see are in some way linked to drug or alcohol abuse.

Oftentimes addicts steal to support their addictions to drugs such as methamphetamine and Oxycontin. And many of the violent crimes Davis sees can be chalked up to drug or alcohol use as well.

When it comes time for sentencing, the defendants' addictions are taken into account.

"Drug and alcohol therapy are just an absolute prerequisite factor component in sentencing. If you sentence without the benefit of drug and alcohol therapy, you simply will see that person again. It becomes a revolving door," Davis said.

Substance abuse treatment may be ordered for some defendants as a part of their probation. Others may be eligible for programs such as drug court, which allows offenders to have their crimes expunged from their records once they complete the program. For the defendants who find themselves behind bars, there are even programs at the Utah State Prison.

But just as most people in the criminal justice system agree that drugs are the primary driving force behind crime, there is also a consensus that there aren't enough treatment options available for those who need it, or enough funding for the programs that are out there.

The community

"I apologize to the community for these behaviors, and I will change that."

Each Thursday at the Utah State Prison, that sentence is uttered dozens of times. For residents of the Con-Quest program, a residential drug treatment program, it is an acknowledgment that they broke the rules, and a vow to their peers that the offending behavior will be corrected.

Residents are held accountable by their peers for infractions such as holding up the chow line, not making their beds properly or leaving their section without identification. Inside Con-Quest, civics are taken seriously.

Though Con-Quest and Excell, its women's counterpart, are in-patient substance abuse programs within the prison's barbed wire fences, they are distinctly separate from the rest of the facility. To be eligible for the program, inmates must be designated by the prison as addicts.

Residents of Con-Quest -- they are not referred to as inmates -- generally enter the program as a last step before they are paroled. The program combines counseling to address the residents' substance abuse issues with lessons intended to help change negative behaviors that may have contributed to their problems.

"How you deal with relationships here can go home with you," said Donna Kendall, the clinical therapist supervisor for the Con-Quest program.

Con-Quest has about 400 residents, while Excell has almost 150. On Thursdays, the residents spend all day in their sections doing group activities. Part of the day is spent doing relays, encounters and haircuts, which are activities designed to address bad behavior or broken rules while providing positive feedback. The Thursday groups also involve community-building exercises such as conducting group cheers and acting out skits.

The relays, encounters and haircuts are run by the residents themselves, which is the overarching theme of Con-Quest and Excell.

"The object ... is to allow the inmates to be in charge of the community," Kendall said.

Excell, Con-Quest's counterpart for female inmates, has a different focus. Greg Hendrix, the Excell supervisor, said many of the women are dealing with physical or sexual abuse issues that led many of them to begin abusing drugs or alcohol in the first place. So much of their therapy is designed to help address trauma or self-worth issues, along with creating the relapse prevention and pre-release plans the men work on. There is also a lot of focus on parenting and healthy relationships, as well as classes through Salt Lake Community College to provide marketable skills for the residents once they are released.

Prison officials cite the programs as success stories based on the number of graduates who recidivate, or relapse back into crime and end up back in the court system.

Con-Quest graduates have an average recidivism rate of 20 percent, according to Utah Department of Corrections spokeswoman Angie Welling. Inmates who don't go through the program have a recidivism rate of 75-85 percent. For Excell, the recidivism rate is about 22 percent. HOPE, a men's program at the Central Utah Correctional Facility in Gunnison that is similar to Con-Quest, has a recidivism rate of about 33 percent.

The residents appear enthusiastic about the program. Some have been through other rehabilitation programs before, but nothing quite like Con-Quest.

"They've given me a lot of positive insight ... to not only become a better person, but become a better father and a better husband," said Nick Lovato, 32. Lovato, who is serving time for forgery and drug possession, said he started living on the streets when he was 11 years old.

The program is conducive to change, said 37-year-old resident Richard Eaton. If you're there long enough it not only makes you want to change, but it gives you a plan for doing so.

"I've always had an idea of who I wanted to be, but now I have it on paper. I have a map," said Eaton, who was convicted of aggravated assault in 2006.

Many residents go through a gradual shift in their outlook as they go through the program. As unit coordinators, Bryce Collings, John Bott and Charles Cushing have been from one extreme to the other, and use that experience to help others bridge the gap. Unit coordinators are Con-Quest residents who help oversee the entire program. The therapists who are over each section give directions to the unit coordinators, who carry them out while making sure the dorms run consistently and work closely with programming and security officials to maintain stability.

"We're kind of like the peer leaders for the whole program," said Collings, 33. Collings, who lived in Orem before going to prison, has been incarcerated for nearly five years on an automobile homicide conviction.

New residents often come in with a "challenge authority" mentality, said Bott, a 33-year-old Payson native who is serving time for robbery, theft and attempted forgery. But after a while, Bott said, you see that attitude start to change. The community aspect goes a long way in assisting that process.

"They try to leave it up to us, you know, to start learning to pull each other up, hold each other accountable and do it through a therapeutic community other than through security. It's really cool for us to have that opportunity," Bott said.

On the other side of the bars

The Con-Quest and Excell programs seem successful, but judges want to help people kick the drug habits that fuel their criminal behavior before they wind up in prison, or even find themselves back in the judges' courtrooms.

Some offenders can go through the state's drug court program, which includes intensive therapy sessions and meetings. To complete the program, participants must have full-time jobs, a high school diploma or GED and must have been drug-free for at least six months. The program lasts at least one year, and goes for as long as it takes each participant to graduate.

Judge James Taylor, who oversees the Utah County 4th District Felony Drug Court, said the relapse and recidivism rates for the program can be difficult to track because participants' records are expunged once they graduate, but the program is often cited as a success story because of its low recidivism rate.

"I think recidivism in general treatment is something like 80 percent, and ... it's 10 percent in our program," he said. "That's a pretty good rate."

Richard Nance, the director of the Utah County Division of Substance Abuse, collaborates with the criminal justice system to provide treatment for people who go through the court's system for drug-related crimes. Nance said the average adult client who finds treatment through the division of substance abuse has had eight or more arrests, mostly within the 12-18 months prior to treatment. After treatment, they average about one arrest per year. Those numbers go back as far as 1993.

Nance said they see about 2,000 clients a year.

For people who end up in the Utah County Jail, there is the OUT program, which stands for On-Unit Treatment. It is open to anyone who is serving more than 30 days in the jail.

Nance described OUT as a 30-day stabilization program to give offenders a jump start on getting treatment when they leave the jail. Officials at Con-Quest and Excell describe their programs as having a similar purpose.

Nance said re-arrest rates for jail inmates who don't take part in OUT are about 33 percent higher than those who complete the program.

The promise Of DORA

The problem most of these programs encounter on a regular basis is a lack of funding. Many of the programs, such as drug court and Con-Quest, are successful, but there's never enough money to keep up with demand, and the result is usually long waiting lists.

But recent legislation may help remedy that funding shortfall. In 2006 the state Legislature passed the Drug Offender Reform Act, or DORA. Sponsored by Sen. Chris Buttars, R-West Jordan, DORA will celebrate its one-year anniversary as a full-time program in July. It was initially created as a three-year pilot program, but the state decided to implement it as a full-time, statewide program after the second year.

DORA's main component is treatment programs that serve as an alternative to prison, Buttars said. Offenders can stay home, live with their families and keep their jobs, all while receiving treatment for substance abuse. The level of treatment, as well as the length, depends on the needs of the offender.

"The whole principles were based on 'treatment works,' and we've proven that over the years with our drug courts. It just takes it to a whole new level," Buttars said. "Treatment works, but just locking a person up doesn't."

Utah has about 6,600 incarcerated people, Buttars said, and in its first year DORA has kept about 600 more from ending up behind bars. Buttars thinks there are probably 2,500 people in the corrections system at any given time that would fit DORA.

He pointed out that it costs the state $29,000 a year to keep someone in prison, while it costs $4,200 a year to treat someone through DORA. The state considered building a new 500-bed prison, Buttars said, which had a price tag of about $80 million last year.

DORA had $8 million in funding during its first year, and in the 2009 fiscal year it will have $9 million. Buttars said he expects the program to cost about $15 million a year when it is running at full capacity, but given the costs of incarcerating people and building new prisons, Buttars sees the cost as well worth it.

"You'll be saving ... a couple hundred million dollars a year," he said.

Mary Lou Emerson, the director of the Utah Substance Abuse and Anti-Violence Coordinating Council, hopes to see DORA's funding peak at about $17 million a year. There is a lot of hope that DORA funding can provide more resources for other cash-starved programs, but the money isn't there right now.

LOOKING FOR MORE

Across the board, officials say there is a need for more funding and resources for treatment programs. Most have more demand than s upply, and the result is countless people who are waiting for a chance to get clean.

If the number of available spots in drug court were doubled today, Taylor said he could fill them immediately. Similarly, Con-Quest has a waiting list of hundreds. Nance estimates that the Utah County Division of Substance Abuse is able to provide treatment for only about 10 percent of the county's residents who need it.

"Nationwide there isn't enough treatment for substance abusers, and that holds true for Utah County too," he said. "Every public substance abuse program is going to have a wait list."

Because the waiting lists have become so long over time, Emerson feels the state may be fighting such battles for a long time. But with programs like DORA in effect, she thinks Utah is moving in the right direction.

"The programs are very successful," she said. "If we could just really have enough resources to treat that population in need, I think we could have a huge impact. But we're doing the best we can in the meantime."

• Jeremy Duda can be reached at 344-2561 or This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it