The Maui News | May 23, 2022
Maui Drug Court graduate Stephen Gladden says his life before entering the Maui Drug Court was “about as bad as it can get.”
He was on the run, lived in a cane field and under a bridge, lost his mother and father and was treated for cancer.
“Then I got into this program. I got my whole life back,” he said during the Maui/Molokai Drug Court’s 78th graduation ceremony Thursday in the courtroom of 2nd Circuit Drug Court Judge Kelsey Kawano.
“In life, it’s always rules,” said Gladden, whose probation was ended early with his graduation. “You might not agree with them, but you have to follow them.”
Read the full story in The Maui News.
PC: The Maui News
Maui/Molokai Drug Court partners with Aloha House, Malama Family Recovery Center, and other community groups to provide treatment for individuals with Substance Use Disorder.
On their website, the Maui/Molokai Drug Court shares that the program “was established to address problems stemming from substance abuse, while minimizing the societal costs of drug-related crimes, and protecting the community.”
Further, as “an alternative to incarceration, the program helps ease both overcrowding in Hawaii’s jails and prisons, and reduces the impact of incarceration on the children and extended family members of the program’s participants.”
The program has graduated over 700 participants in its 20 year history.
