AUGUSTA -- Arthur "Brian" Traweek used to not be able to look people in the eye when they spoke to him.

He was sad, the judge said. He would avoid talking to people.

"I hated myself and I hated everyone else," the soft-spoken man with glasses said. "And that ultimately put me in jail."

Traweek was brought to the Kennebec County Correctional Facility in December 2005 from the Cumberland County jail, after being charged with burglary, theft, forgery and other charges.

At the time, he suffered from an undisclosed mental illness and substance abuse. He was away from his son.

Today, Traweek is an at-large representative for the Statewide Consumer Council, which works with state agencies advocating for the mentally ill. He's a peer counselor at Riverview Psychiatric Center. And he works for the peer support center Amistad.

He also has a relationship with his son again, and, most importantly, can say he is clean of his substance abuse problems.

Traweek, with two other men and one woman, were honored Monday in a ceremony to celebrate their completion of the Co-Occurring Disorders Court program, an experimental approach to corrections that gives inmates who suffer from mental illness and substance or alcohol abuse a chance to stay out of jail.

The program, established in 2005, celebrated its first two graduates in September 2006.

The nature of the graduates' mental illnesses cannot be released because they are patients and are protected by federal health privacy laws.

The graduates were not forthcoming in disclosing their criminal activity with a reporter, though Kennebec County Sheriff Randall Liberty said many participants were arrested on probation violations.

"Justice Mills and (District Attorney) Evert Fowle select these participants and can veto someone's application," Liberty said. "They are not allowing people who pose a threat to public safety in this program."

Hartwell Dowling, a rehabilitation coordinator from the Administrative Office of the Courts, said participants must plead guilty to their alleged crimes before they can be accepted into the program. They're given a choice: Less jail time if they stay with the intensive program, for at least a year; or spend more of their sentence behind bars.

Dowling said all program participants spend some amount of time in jail, though program coordinators attempt to have the inmates serve their jail time up front, rather than at the end of their rehabilitation.

The program, Mills said, is intense, and not everyone selected to join is able to complete it.

"We require they fully pay all fines and restitution, and child support if they are a parent," Mills said. "In this court, we use the phrase 'rehabilitation and responsibility'."

Additionally, whether or not they are in jail, each Co-Occurring Disorders Court member must report to Mills in person every Monday to update her on his or her condition.

They also must stay in contact with a case worker.

Several of them, such as recent graduate Carla Bonenfant, attend several anonymous 12-step classes weekly.

The four participants' diligence paid off, she added. Instead of spending several months -- or even a few years -- incarcerated, most of them spent an average of just over two months in jail.

Meghan V. Malloy -- 623-3811, Ext. 431

mmalloy@centralmaine.com