Davis still roams the streets of Buffalo, stealing to pay for her dope.

Baxter is now drug-free, although it's a constant struggle.

The difference, in part, could be how the criminal-justice system treated the women.

Baxter was scooped up by her parole officer and sent to Willard Drug Treatment Center after the 35-year-old Jamestown woman injected herself with heroin in an inpatient drug treatment center.

Years earlier, when Davis' drug addiction landed her back in court, her attorney begged the judge to place Davis, 37, in Willard, too.

"If she has any chance at all of ever being successfully assimilated into society and having any kind of a meaningful and productive life, she has to deal with her addiction problem," attorney Bonnie McLaughlin told the judge.

But Davis didn't meet Willard's court-required entrance criteria, so instead was sent to Bedford Hills Correctional Facility, a women's prison in Westchester County.

"We'd do heroin at the Erie County Holding Center," Davis said. "In state prison, [drugs] are more plentiful. I got drugs from other convicts and guards."

A one-time agricultural school converted into a state hospital for the mentally ill, Willard was transformed in 1995 into New York's only prison exclusively for drug addicts, a 900-bed facility in the Finger Lakes.

Some say Willard offers lessons on how to keep illegal drugs out of New York's prisons.

But Willard's not a panacea. It doesn't transform everyone.

Craig M. Lynch went to Willard twice, only to kill a beloved Buffalo nun while high on crack cocaine less than a year after his release.

Bruce Ferguson, who grew up in Williamsville, also went there but returned to committing crimes when he got out. He ended up in state prison, snorting heroin with another inmate. Ferguson survived. His cellmate, Michael Vlahoff of Lancaster, didn't.

There are others. No one knows how many. The state doesn't keep statistics on former Willard inmates. They don't know how many succeed on the outside, and how many relapse. They don't know if the recidivism rate is any better than the 40 percent in traditional prisons.

Nonetheless, Willard is one of the few correctional facilities in New York where inmates can't seem to get their hands on drugs. No Willard inmates tested positive in drug screenings, and there are no reports of drug confiscations at the center, state officials said.

Inmates don't bring drugs into the facility because the program is devoted to changing behavior, and because inmates know if they get caught with drugs, they will get an extended sentence at a traditional prison, rather than 90 days at Willard, officials said.

"They know they're going home rather than going to prison. It's a carrot," said Deputy Superintendent Daniel M. West.

Intense experience

Stacey Baxter was at Willard for three months last fall. It was an intense experience, she said.

The day began at 5:30 a.m., with a one-to three-mile run before breakfast, followed by drug treatment sessions, academic instruction and vocational training. Random drug tests are also part of the routine.

It's all in a military-like setting, with dormitory-style quarters rather than cells and corrections officers acting more like drill sergeants than prison guards. In fact, officers come around making sure beds are properly made and personal items are kept neatly in cabinets.

Inmates are allowed visitors once every two weeks, on weekends only. Contact visits are allowed, just as at traditional prisons.

"I hated it when I came here," Baxter said of Willard, but added: "If I didn't [go to Willard] I'd be dead. I think it is the best thing I've done."

Now home in Jamestown, Baxter regularly attends outpatient drug treatment sessions initially set up by Willard. Still, it's a constant battle.

Since she was 12 years old, Baxter says, she has taken drugs. She spent much of her life in foster care, detention and behind bars. Now, while drug-free, she dreams of getting high at night and thinks about drugs during the day. In fact, she had one slip since being released from Willard that landed her back in the hospital.

But with two children, and a third on the way, Baxter says she's committed to staying clean.

"Now I'm fine. I'm clean off everything. I put myself back in outpatient," she said, adding: "It's too hard to be a dope fiend. I don't miss that life."

Cheryl Davis' world

Cheryl Davis still lives in that world.

Standing outside her West Side apartment last winter, Davis was thin and tired. She wanted a heroin fix.

"You know I'm a drug addict," she said. "I can't talk today."

Another day, when doped up and feeling better, Davis said her mother, then father, died in separate car accidents only months apart when she was a young girl.

"I come from a very good family," she said.

By the time Davis turned 16, she was a high school dropout and prostitute. Her life has been a constant mix of drugs, prostitution and thievery, broken up periodically by jail, prison and halfway houses. She has been arrested 71 times in the Buffalo area.

In 1999, after stabbing another drug user, Davis was back in court.

While her attorney wanted Davis sentenced to Willard, the judge said Davis didn't qualify because she was a violent felon. She got a prison sentence of 16 months to 3 years.

She came out of prison as drug-addicted as when she went in.

And since her release, she's been arrested 13 times on drug, prostitution, theft, assault and forgery charges. Davis spent the better part of 2006 in jail, after being caught stealing from stores along Niagara Falls Boulevard. She is now back on the streets.

Judges can place convicts in Willard for drug-related offenses, but not violent felonies. District attorneys and judges, however, appear reluctant to ship convicts to Willard's 90-day program in lieu of lengthier prison sentences. Just 18 of the state's 62 counties refer convicts to Willard directly from court, Willard Superintendent Melvin Williams said.

Willard inmates are also referred to the facility for violating parole. Unlike the courts, parole can commit violent felonies to Willard. That's how Baxter got in. Davis qualified under those terms, but never got such a referral.

"The community wants people to go to prison," Williams said.

Seeking solutions

Some suggest beefing up drug tests and imposing tighter procedures on contact visits, including drug-sniffing dogs as a way to combat drugs in state prisons. But those ideas have detractors, who complain of costs to the state and civil rights of visitors.

An alternative, some say, is to expand programs such as those offered in Willard into regular prisons, even creating drug-free wings.

Inmates in these wings would voluntarily receive aggressive drug testing as well as early drug treatment.

Buffalo City Judge Robert T. Russell Jr., who runs the city's drug court, said he has seen drug-free wings in European prisons, where corrections officers take a more active role in rehabilitating drug addicts.

Such programs disrupt the market for drugs in prison, said Alan Rosenthal, director of justice strategies at the Center for Community Alternatives in Syracuse.

"Many people are processed through [prisons], and they never receive drug treatment," Rosenthal said. "The inmate who is in an intensive treatment program is less likely to be searching out drugs."

Beyond that, better outpatient treatment when prisoners are released is also needed, Rosenthal said.

Improved drug treatment in and out of prison, Russell said, would help inmates and better protect the public - and could also save money.

Drug-addicted inmates released back into society "are going to come back, and you're going to spend $35,000 a year to reincarcerate them," Rosenthal said.

e-mail: lmichel@buffnews.com
and sschulman@buffnews.com