'A chance to choose life': For some, drug courts break cycle of addiction and crime

Eagle County's two problem-solving courts put treatment ahead of punishment when addressing crimes committed by people with substance abuse problems. Originally set up as one court, they now function separately to address drunken driving and drugs and serve people "teetering on the edge of serious prison time" for repeat offenses. More than 90 percent of participants in 2020 maintained sobriety and more than 80 percent avoided new legal troubles. While the threat of punishment is used to win compliance with rules, prosecutors say they're more interested in permanently curing the underlying disease.

Like standard drug courts, the Penobscot Nation's Healing to Wellness Court refers people facing drug-related criminal charges to substance abuse counseling as an alternative to punishment. But this court and other tribal wellness courts are steeped in indigenous customs, blended with restorative justice approaches, to emphasize rehabilitation based on trust, support, and native traditions. The threat of punishment looms over participants should they fail in their counseling program. But no one has been jailed in the past two years in the Penobscot program.

An array of services in Pima County, Arizona, greets hundreds of people getting released early from jail or helps keep them out of jail in the first place. By providing drug treatment, housing, job assistance, and other help that people need instead of incarceration, the county's Criminal Justice Reform Unit and Jail Population Review Committee saved the county $2 million in jail costs over just part of 2020. Drug use also declined and officials hope to see longer-range benefits in lower recidivism.

In 2007, Texas prisons were near capacity and half a billion dollars was needed to build three new prisons. Instead, the state became a model for conservative-led criminal sentencing reform by changing a host of laws to send many fewer people to prison in the first place. By spending half of the savings on drug and alcohol treatment, among other services, the state focused on solving people's underlying problems rather than always punishing behavior after the fact.

Since 2018, Judge Jason Lidyard of Rio Arriba County, N.M., has forged a new model for a drug court. Instead of demanding abstinence from drugs as the price to stay out of jail, Lidyard uses respect and personal relationships to seek a redefinition of success: making substance abuse less deadly and less socially crippling. Violating the court's requirements to get treatment results in more help, not jail. The less punitive approach seemed to reduce overdoses until a new fentanyl surge complicated the picture. Almost all of the people who've gone through the court have avoided new felony arrests.

In Alamosa County, law enforcement officers who believe drug abuse is at the root of a person's criminal behavior can refer that person to treatment and other services, rather than arresting and jailing them. The Law Enforcement Assisted Diversion (LEAD) program, used in multiple places around the country, has helped the county jail fewer people and send more into treatment. It also has caused a large drop in arrest warrants, because case workers help people make their appointments in court and elsewhere. Now, San Miguel County, N.M., is working to adopt LEAD, though it needs more treatment facilities.

People in two New Jersey counties who were at risk of abusing opioids while on parole were given extra support services, and an immediate trip to rehab instead of back to prison when they slipped up. The pilot program is New Jersey's version of Swift, Certain and Fair, a federally funded program to help people succeed while on parole. In some of the 30 states with SCF programs, copying the original and successful Hawaii model didn't work. But New Jersey's approach to helping people succeed instead of laying traps to send them back to prison was deemed a success with a small, focused pilot program.

The Mecklenburg County district attorney stopped prosecuting non-violent, low-level drug cases to free up resources to handle a backlog of more serious cases that built up during the pandemic. The policy had the effect of freeing people from the permanent stain of a criminal conviction and offering them drug treatment as an alternative to punishment.

Acting on a recognition that police and the criminal justice system are too involved in responses to mental health and substance abuse crises, UCHealth formed mental health response teams that partner with Fort Collins police on such calls. In about 80% of calls the teams handled, no arrests were made while people received treatment or were referred to needed services. This program plus one that diverts certain criminal cases into treatment, which can result in dismissal of charges, have built-in drawbacks but have begun de-emphasizing criminal-justice remedies when people need other help.

Missouri legislators passed a law in 2019 clarifying that prosecutors can divert criminal cases to social services and healthcare agencies even before charges are filed. Small experiments that had been taking place in recent years suddenly grew in St. Louis County to help the courts focus only on serious cases during pandemic shutdowns. Now those innovations are spreading, as more drug cases and other low-level cases avoid the courts altogether. This eases the burden also on people, who in traditional drug courts still get arrested and face employment barriers even if their cases eventually get dropped.