Atlantans skeptical Drug Court helps burglars

Johnny Frank Dennard, who had convictions going back more than 20 years, was facing at least five mandatory years in prison for burglarizing a southeast Atlanta home.

Instead, Superior Court Judge Alfred Dempsey let Dennard, 41, remain free and sentenced him to the Fulton County Drug Court, a treatment program designed for criminals who steal to support a drug habit.

That outcome didn’t sit well with anti-crime advocates: For them there was little evidence Dennard even had an addiction. He also had at least five convictions for burglary and was also on probation for burglary when he broke into the Lakewood Heights house in 2007, according to his court file.

“I like the idea of drug court but it was too light of a sentence because if you commit a crime, you should be punished for it,” said Monica McAfee, vice president of the Sylvan Hills Neighborhood Association, in southwest Atlanta.

“It sounds to me like drug court is a misnomer. Johnny Dennard didn’t have any drugs on him when he was arrested. He didn’t have any drug convictions.”

Atlanta neighborhood advocates have long voiced frustration that Fulton County judges don’t lock up burglars like Dennard when they’re finally caught —- and their voices are getting louder.

Last week, they met with Dempsey and Chief Superior Court Judge Doris Downs at Martha Brown United Methodist Church in East Atlanta to find out why Dennard went into a program designed to break drug addicts from the crime cycle instead of prison when he was sentenced on Jan. 26.

Dempsey —- who acknowledged Dennard could have served at least five years as a habitual offender —- contended it wasn’t rare for a drug addict with a long criminal history to be without drug arrests. The judge said that drug-court officials signed off on Dennard before his guilty plea, that he had a job and was doing well in Agape, a religious-based program to treat drug addiction.

Downs, who oversees Drug Court, said the program is the most effective method of reducing burglaries because prison has failed to stem crime. Most property crimes are drug-related but burglars are routinely released from prison after serving only a fraction of their sentences because of overcrowding, Downs said.

She acknowledged most criminals flunk out of the Drug Court and end up doing a short term in prison before being paroled again. But 70 percent of those who completed the program have not been rearrested, she added.

John Wolfinger, an anti-crime advocate with the Virginia-Highland Neighborhood Association who attended the meeting, said the two judges sold him on trying drug court before prison —- even for criminals with years of arrests.

“I guess I would have to trust Judge Dempsey’s insight into these cases,” he said. “The Drug Court at least has a far higher degree of monitoring than our probation system, which we all know is broken.”

Johnny Dixon, an anti-crime advocate from Adams Park in southwest Atlanta, wasn’t convinced. He said drug court appeared helpful with a minority of criminals —- which might make it worthwhile —- but that neighborhoods would be safer if judges locked up habitual offenders.

“This guy was obviously a career burglar —- in my opinion that warranted jail time,” Dixon said. “Downs was pushing Drug Court hard but her own statistics didn’t seem to match up to her claims about its effectiveness.

“Maybe the answer is more prisons.”