mr. tucker with us today. mr. tucker, please proceed. your entire statement which if read would take considerably more than 5 minutes will be made a part of the record so that you can make a shorter statement orally here today. >> thank you very much, senator. chairman whitehouse, ranking member kyl and distinguished members of the subcommittee, thank you for allowing me to testify in the drug courts. as the director for office state localal and tribal affairs it's my job to work with our communities in support of prevention of law enforcement initiatives through development of policy and programs. i understand how important it is to identify and support alternatives to incarceration. having walked the beat as a new york city police officers and worked in criminal justice for the past 35 years, it is clear we cannot arrest our way out of the nation's drug problem. the obama administration recognizes that addiction is a disease. and that prevention, treatment, recovery, innovative criminal justice strategies and law enforcement are all es

mr. tucker.ome senator blumenthal of connecticut to the hearing, i appreciate that he's taken the trouble to attend. everybody's very busy now, so people being here is a sign of very keen interest. um, let me ask you about the federal interest in drug courts. in a later panel, we will hear from a witness who says that the federal government shouldn't bother with this, and that it should be left to the states to manage drug courts and not -- without support from the federal government. you've been involved in this for a long time. make the case for a federal role in supporting drug courts around the country. >> certainly, senator. first, though, i just -- in the terms of my experience, as you indicated, i've been involved in this work for a long time, and it seems in any number of programs that have been successful such as drug court programs over the last 20 years, it seems that in very often the beginnings of those programs, the testings, the demonstration projects that give rise to these progra

mr. tucker. chairman whitehouse. >> thank you, senator kohl. senator coons has joined us. e order on our side is senator franken first. you, mr. chairman. i notice that former congressman jim branstad is here. i would like to recognize him, too, for his leadership in parity andlth care today for treatment of addiction. minnesota has actually been the leader in addiction treatment, and we are very proud of that. minnesota, we have seen drug courts do very good things. when you talk to return on -- you talked to return on investment in your opening statement and in your response to senator kohl, and part of this is recidivism. we have found that in minnesota, participants in drug courts are less than half as likely to be arrested for another crime as offenders who are prosecuted in traditional courts. this, of course, is the equivalent kind of a rest, etc. i want to know if you are seeing now a nationwide -- get trend nationwide in drug courts in terms of recidivism? >> with respect to recidivism, senator, we are seeing them nationwide. in fact, drug courts -- one of the prim