Drug Courts Offering Treatment

"ENID — Overcrowded and underfunded prison systems, paired with high recidivism rates for drug offenders after release, have led many courts to pursue alternative sentencing programs, providing supervised drug treatment programs in lieu of prison time for non-violent drug offenders.

Garfield County has operated a drug court, also referred to as a sobriety court, since 2004 and since 2000 for juvenile offenders.

The drug court program assigns eligible substance abuse offenders to a comprehensive treatment program, provided through a contract with Youth and Family Services of North Central Oklahoma. The program is overseen by the court, the Oklahoma Department of Corrections and the county drug court staff.

The drug court program is only available to non-violent offenders. Violent offenders, and those charged with trafficking or distribution of drugs, need not apply.

“We try to protect society in that way,” said Youth and Family Services clinical director Taylor Randolph. “If someone’s going to be out working and in society while they go through treatment, we need to make sure they’re safe.”

Potential drug court clients also are assessed by counselors to determine their willingness and ability to receive treatment.

Alcohol-related offenses constitute the largest bloc of drug court referrals, followed in order of prevalence by methamphetamine, marijuana and opiates. The drug court supervises treatment for 75 to 100 clients in any given year.

Randolph said offenders selected for drug court treatment, instead of jail, are held to a “very high degree of accountability.”

At a minimum, drug court clients must complete:

• three random drug screenings per week;

• one individual counseling session per week;

• one group counseling session per week;

• one meeting with a case manager per week;

• three 12-step meetings per week.

Drug court clients also must attend regular appearances before the drug court judge, adhere to a 10 p.m. to 5 a.m. curfew, pay all court costs and remain in school or work full time.

Clients must remain “clean and sober” for 84 consecutive days before they’re eligible to complete the program, a process that takes at least one year, but no more than three years.

Compliance with those rules is overseen by DOC probation and parole officers like John Masquelier.

“People in drug court are watched more closely than anyone else in town … I can show up on their doorstep at any time,” Masquelier said.

He’s seen people succeed in the drug court program, and he’s seen those who failed, violated their probation, and landed in jail.

The biggest difference between the two, he said, is whether or not they sever ties with their life of substance abuse.

“Old friends and acquaintances are their biggest hurdle,” he said. “If they can get rid of those old connections, it’s going to make a big difference.”

For those who adhere to their probation terms, and remain in drug court, the path to recovery begins with an assessment, conducted by a drug court counselor.

“The interesting part of this program is the emphasis is on treatment rather than punishment,” said drug court counselor Randy DeWitt.

He said the initial assessment, known as an Addiction Severity Index, “gives us a snapshot of the things that could be creating issues in their life.”

DeWitt said the first step for counselors is to identify the root cause of the client’s addiction.

“We have to look for the things behind why this person is doing this,” DeWitt said. “Nobody picks up a beer and says, ‘Great, today’s the day I start my life as an alcoholic.’ They don’t have other ways or the support systems to deal with what’s going on in their life.”

He said clients often begin the path to addiction because of past, unresolved trauma, like rape, abuse, neglect or other forms of victimization.

“Many times you have to work on that trauma and get that figured out before they can even begin the recovery process,” said drug court counselor Janice Reid.

Once the process of addressing any underlying trauma has begun, the next step is to help clients build new relationships, new daily routines, and a new life free of substance abuse.

“The big thing is the fact that we’re trying to change their behavior and their daily lives, so they don’t do those things that are triggers, and they start doing those things that make them productive members of society,” DeWitt said. “We really have to teach them alternative ways of thinking and processing what they’re going through.”

Keeping up with all the program requirements can be daunting for clients, especially if they have not previously been accustomed to having a set schedule and daily requirements.

“Drug court is worse than being incarcerated for many of them,” said Garfield County drug court coordinator Judy Helberg. “It’s not just the substance abuse we have to deal with … we really have to go in and change their entire lifestyle.”

“One of the biggest issues is they come in here and they have a schedule, and it’s like their whole world is covered up in this,” DeWitt added. “When they realize ‘This isn’t as hard as I thought it was,’ that’s huge. The first job I have is to get them to realize, it’s OK to do this day to day, it’s OK to have a schedule, and then they can start building their personal responsibilities.”

Clients’ chances of success in the drug court program are greatly improved if they have positive influences from — and support of — family members.

All too often, clients have pushed away family members and lost their natural support network. Or worse, their family members continue to live a life of substance abuse, constantly threatening to draw them back into their old life.

Joy Baker-Qualls, Garfield County Juvenile Officer, said overcoming family members’ negative influences is particularly hard for children and teens in the program.

“We’ve gone to search juveniles’ houses before and we end up finding drug stashes in the parents’ bedside table,” she said. “You just stop and ask yourself, ‘How successful are we going to be here?’”

Drug court staff often step into roles for juvenile clients that normally would be filled by family members.

“We really become their families,” Baker-Qualls said. “I’ve driven kids to football practice, job interviews, to counseling … we want to do whatever is going to make them a productive citizen.”

Drug court staff also work to rebuild clients’ physical support systems, including employment, housing and transportation.

Youth and Family Services case manager Rachel Moore helps her clients find employment and housing, but she said it’s often a difficult process. Negative stigma associated with substance abuse often deters apartment managers and prospective employers.

“Jobs and housing are the hardest things to find, and they’re the things they need the most,” Moore said.

“We do have a problem in Enid finding people who will employ people with felonies,” Helberg added.

Helberg said employers should see drug court clients as being more highly supervised than other members of the general public.

“Where else,” she asked, “is an employer going to find an employee who’s being drug tested three or four times a week?”

Still, some clients aren’t able to rebuild the support systems they need, making their path to recovery that much more difficult.

“We have had people who lived on the street while they were coming through our program,” Helberg said. And, that process can be long, especially if you’re living on the street.

“It takes a year, minimum, for your brain to recover from drug abuse,” Helberg said. “So someone coming through this program can’t really even rationalize things clearly until they’ve been in the program for eight to 12 months. We can’t fix them overnight ... it’s a long process.”

Not all clients make it through the drug court program. Some violate their probation, a few simply don’t complete the required treatment and are returned to the regular judicial system.

But, the vast majority of drug court clients in Garfield County successfully complete the program.

Since 2004, the program has logged an 80 percent success rate with it clients. And, recidivism rates for drug court graduates are 63 percent lower than their peers who go to jail, where treatment is scarce, if at all available.

Drug court advocates say the program is much more effective than jail at turning non-violent addicts into productive members of society.

“Jail doesn’t deal with treatment,” said Shelby Hall, director of development for Youth and Family Services. “Jail doesn’t deal with trauma, it doesn’t decrease the urge to use, it doesn’t increase their life skills, and it costs us a lot of money.”

That last bit — about the money — largely plays into why drug court programs are gaining traction throughout the state.

According to drug court data, it costs about $19,000 a year to house a prison inmate, not including any treatment services. The tab for one client in drug court comes to about $5,000 per year.

One of the barriers to expanding the program, and better serving non-violent drug offenders, remains social perceptions of substance abuse.

“There’s such a stigma that substance abuse is a choice, but the actual research out there leans towards it being a disease,” said Youth and Family Services executive director Dan Buckley. “The general perception in the public is ‘Well, these people can just quit,’ but it takes time for the brain to heal, and that’s a medical fact.”

Drug court staff continue to work to change public perceptions of the program, and of its clients.

“All of the people in our program are good people who made some bad decisions,” Baker-Qualls said. “We’re equipping them with the tools to be able to make good decisions.”

By James Neal, Staff Writer Enid News.com Oklahoma

Source: http://enidnews.com/localnews/x14838...sive-treatment

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