New program gives young addicts chance to restore lives

In a sixth-floor courtroom at the Regional Justice Center, two dozen young offenders anxiously wait for Judge Cedric Kerns to call them to the podium for evaluation.
The defendants, ages 18 to 24, are struggling drug addicts, who by all accounts, should be dead from the heroin, cocaine, crystal meth and prescription pills that once flowed through their veins.
Most have failed every other recovery program the system offers.
But today they are alive and taking life one day at a time in a yearlong recovery program in the Las Vegas Municipal Court called Youth Offender Court. The program began in April.