One Year Old DORA Going Strong

None by KCPW

(KCPW News) DORA, the Drug Offender Reform Act is one year old, and the legislature wants to know how its going. Wednesday, July 19, the Law Enforcement and Criminal Justice Interim Committee meets to discuss the results so far. Tim Whalen, Associate Director for Salt Lake County Division of Substance Abuse says, one year in, and the only problem he's seen is competing interests.

"With a program like DORA you are bringing together a whole bunch of systems. You've got the Department of Corrections, the County substance abuse treatment providers, the Legal Defenders Association, the prosecutors, the Administrative Office of the Courts, and all the judges," Whalen explains. "Everyone has a unique way of doing business, but we are all working together, all of these systems and some of them with competing interests."

DORA is a three-year pilot program testing the effects of treatment for drug offenders in Salt Lake County. One hundred and thirty drug offenders have been ordered into the program thus far. Whalen says the program has already revealed a lot.

"I think we've learned a lot from the Salt Lake County pilot. What we learned from communication, at the outset of getting things going, we could share if it went to statewide implementation," says Whalen. "I think the [DORA] model itself is a sound model, as far as informed sentencing. So I think what we have learned will really help if it goes to statewide implementation."

The program has two years left of testing before it will present its final results to lawmakers. It may take some time after the three years is up for DORA to go into effect if the legislature decides to implement the program statewide.

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