Forty additional treatment slots will be available soon for nonviolent, mentally ill drug offenders in Hawaii due to a $200,000 federal grant being awarded to Oahu Circuit Court. 

The slots, which are typically state-funded, will be supported for the next two years.

“It’s really a great program but it’s limited in numbers because it is intensive and you see judges regulary,” Circuit Judge Steven Alm said of the drug court program he runs on Oahu.

The court’s Adult Drug Court program currently has 150 people enrolled, and the Hawaii First Judicial Circuit Mental Health Court has 32 participants. Thirty of the new slots will be awarded to the drug court and 10 will go to the mental health court.