Adding to its tapestry of problem-solving courts, Richland County has received a forty-two thousand dollar state grant to work with drug offenders who were terminated from drug court and sent to prison, to return to a reentry/drug court upon release into the community. The funding will allow sixty returning offenders to engage the regular drug court as a reentry court (though there is a reentry court in place in the county [see: Richland County: A Reentry Court Showcase].
Dave Leitenberger, Program Coordinator and head of Richland County Probation, believes that the drug court is the best place for returning drug offenders to receive treatment, monitoring, and rehabilitation services. Mr.Leitenberger also informed me in a telephone interview that the existing reentry court has neither prosecutor nor defense counsel on its reentry court team (though, upon termination from reentry court, parolees face parole authorities at “parole revocation hearings”, with defense counsel present).
