HATTIESBURG (AP) — When Deric Hammond was arrested on drug charges in 2003, he prayed for an unusual intervention.

Hammond sat in his Forrest County jail cell, he said, broken by an 18-year addiction to crack cocaine.

He said his only way to rehabilitation depended on a campaign promise made by Bob Helfrich, who had recently been elected as circuit judge.

Before Hammond’s arrest, Helfrich campaigned on a promise that he would establish a drug court to rehabilitate drug offenders.

‘‘I was in the cell block praying for God to help me,’’ said Hammond, 47, of Hattiesburg.

Fast forward six years. Now, Hammond says his prayers have been answered.

Hammond is one of 18 people who graduated recently from Helfrich’s Forrest-Perry county drug court program.

‘‘I made it. The grace of God got me in drug court,’’ said Hammond, who has been drug-free for four years. ‘‘I really didn’t think I would be clean this long.’’

Officials across the state say drug courts are saving taxpayers’ dollars while rehabilitating criminals — and ending the cycle of drug addiction.

The programs, which lasts up to five years, place participants under supervision while they attend routine treatment meetings and take random drug tests.

If the offenders successfully finish the program, their drug offense is wiped off their criminal record.

‘‘Drugs are one of the major problems that we have in Mississippi and this nation,’’ said state Rep. Alyce G. Clarke, D-Jackson.

Clarke, who often tells of her son’s struggle with drugs, rallied to establish drug courts across the state. After studying the program’s success in Florida – where the first drug court was created 20 years ago – Clarke said she knew it was better to treat addicts rather than send them to jail.

‘‘If I can help somebody’s child, then my work will not be in vain,’’ she said. ‘‘My hope was to have one in every district, and I’m still hopeful that we’re going to do that. There’s not a single county where you don’t have drug problems.’’

In 2003, the Mississippi Legislature passed the Alyce Griffin Clarke Drug Court Act, which allows city and county officials to seek funding to create drug courts.

Today, more than 30 drug court programs exist across the state and there are more than 2,000 nationwide.

‘‘When people go from wearing prison garments to becoming productive members of society, breaking their addiction – that’s rewarding,’’ said Circuit Judge Prentiss Harrell, who started a drug court program in February 2008 in Jefferson Davis, Lamar, Lawrence, Marion and Pearl River counties.

U.S. District Judge Keith Starrett, who founded the state’s first drug court program in 1999 in Pike County, said drug courts make communities safer.

‘‘Everybody is somebody in God’s eye,’’ Starrett said.

Starrett started the Hattiesburg-based U.S. District Court’s Re-entry and Pretrial Supervision Program. Under the program, participants attend regular meetings and submit to routine drug tests until they graduate the one-year program.

‘‘A lot of families are being put back together in this area,’’ he said. ‘‘The monetary savings is incalculable.’’

It costs $15,000 to $17,000 annually to incarcerate an offender, but only $1,500 a year to fund a drug court participant, said Helfrich, whose program now has 229 people.

Helfrich said he started the program in 2003 with a grant from the Asbury Foundation of Hattiesburg.

‘‘We incarcerate 1.2 million nonviolent offenders,’’ Helfrich said. ‘‘As judge, I saw the revolving door.’’

He said drug court allows offenders to transform their lives by holding them accountable.

‘‘They want to quit. They just don’t know how. They don’t want a life of misery,’’ he said.

For U.S. District Judge Mike Parker, drug courts are proof that jail is not always the right option for nonviolent offenders.

‘‘There’s always jail but why try that first? For drug offenders we need to look at other alternatives,’’ said Parker, who headed a Hinds County drug court before becoming a federal judge. ‘‘I feel more satisfied when a person comes through the system and they’ve been rehabilitated.’’

Information from: Hattiesburg American, http://www.hattiesburgamerican.com