Many people feel comfortable with the belief that, for repeat criminal offenders, authorities should impose serious jail time.

But while some offenders might defy any attempt or program geared toward steering them back on the right track, there are others capable of being helped — and, given the opportunity, desire that help.

Those are the kind of offenders being targeted by this county’s new Drug Treatment Court.

As an article in the Feb. 28 Butler Eagle detailed, the program’s goal is to select chronic criminals with drug or alcohol issues, help them overcome the addictions that fuel their behavior, and guide them toward becoming productive members of society.

Society benefits when someone who has been a lawbreaker becomes a law-abiding, productive individual not dependent on welfare or other kinds of taxpayer-funded services — although such individuals must live with consequences of their criminal records.

Thus, for repeat offenders, the process of reforming their lives is not easy, but a determined willingness to try merits guarded optimism from the public, communities and the criminal justice system.

Guarded optimism is what the new Drug Treatment Court merits. While it’s unlikely that it will have a 100 percent success rate over the long term, if it turns around a number of otherwise troubled, addiction-ruled lives, it will be judged as a significant asset and a viable option within the criminal justice system.

People who read the Feb. 28 article should have gained some sense of opimism regarding the program based on Butler Police Chief Tim Fennell’s observation that “this is not a ‘slap on the wrist and send you on your way’ program. This is intensive.”

The law-abiding public also should be encouraged by the program’s consequences:

n If the defendant completes the program successfully, he or she faces a probation sentence, although the charges still count as a conviction.

n If the defendant is terminated as a program participant before completing it, he or she serves a predetermined, significant amount of jail time.

The incentives for making such a program successful include the safety benefits that communities derive from those individuals no longer committing crimes, and the money saved by housing fewer prisoners.

Butler County isn’t the leader in making such a program available to chronic criminals who meet the qualifications — among them, that they be offenders with a list of nonviolent crimes rooted in addictions and who now are facing a significant amount of state prison time. Similar programs are working in other areas of the state and country, and this county’s program can be effective as well.

For some criminals, throwing away the key can seem to be the best and only solution, but for others a more positive outcome is possible.

This county should remain determined to make its Drug Treatment Court a success — and in the process save money and restore lives.