Treatment court: An alternative to jailing for drug and alcohol offenses

Editor's note: This is the second in a two-part series looking at repeat offenders arrested in connection with drug and alcohol use.

Drug and alcohol abuse has been a large issue in the area for a very long time.

More than 65 percent of the people law enforcement officers arrest are reoffenders and more than 90 percent of the crimes in the area involving drugs and alcohol, officials report. This is a large drain on resources and tax dollars, local law enforcement representatives said, and something needs to be done. 

Officials say much more is needed to be able to treat and deal with people who have drug and alcohol problems and keep them from continually coming back through the legal system.

Although the problem of recidivism may never go away completely, Havre Police Chief Gabe Matosich said, the community does have resources available to help people who want to get clean and sober achieve that goal.

Along with state and local treatment facilities and counseling, a court-ordered program seems to be helping some people stop abusing drug and alcohol because of their problems and addictions.

Matosich and Hill County Sheriff Jamie Ross said that drug and DUI treatment courts have been a great asset to the community, helping in reducing the number of reoffenders

"The biggest issue is people's mindsets," Matositch said. 

He added that it all goes down if people want to get better and live healthier. If a person wants to get better they can and have a variety of things available to them to help them get started. But it is the people who have chronic cases or feel no need to change who pose a problem.

Hill County Drug/DUI Treatment Court Coordinator Paul Nugent said that the biggest challenges with treatment court is getting people to enroll in the program. The program works by having a judge and the treatment court board approve a referral of a case to the program, he said, but the individual can either choose to enroll in the program or sit out their time in jail. He added that the biggest challenge with any treatment court system is offering its participants something to entice them into the program, such as a deferred sentence or prosecution, getting people their licenses reinstated sooner and not having to go to jail.

Nugent said that the treatment court program both saves taxpayers money and gets people the help they need to overcome their problems in a healthy way. 

Hill County Justice of the Peace and founder of the treatment court program Judge Audrey Barger said that as a judge she has seen a large number of people come in and out of her courtroom, many of them on charges relating to drugs or alcohol. But since treatment court has been established she has noticed a significant change. She said that through the years she has not seen many of the same reoffenders she used to in her early years as a judge.

What is treatment court?

Barger said that the only ways to address alcohol and drug abuse on a criminal justice side is to either incarcerate or have programs with the judicial teeth to make sure people attend the treatment they need to be attending. Treatment court program is enforced by the judicial system and has proven to be highly effective nationwide. She added that the program was started in the 1970s and is implemented in a number of different states and jurisdictions.

  She said that, on average, the program is a one-year program. The reason it is a year is because studies have shown people who have addictions to substances, such as methamphetamines and alcohol, need at least a year for their minds to heal enough to take advantage of treatments. No program is 100 percent successful, she said, adding that she has seen people go through the program and relapse, but the majority of people who go through the program do not tend to reoffend.

Hill County got its first round of participants in 2012 and was awarded its first grant in 2013, Barger said. She added that she and her team did the research for the program and got it established. She said she saw a need for the program because she was seeing the same people regularly in her courtroom and wanted to see if the court could offer a way to reduce the number of people who were reoffending.

Barger added that she would like to see treatment court continue and she has a great team working the program.

It's hard work on both sides, Barger said. It's hard work on the team side and it's hard work on the participants' side, but she believes the use of the program makes a significant difference in the community.

She said that her team is all very invested in the participants and want them to do well. But participants also need to understand that the treatment court team will enforce firm consequences if they do not follow through with the program.

"We want them to do well," she said.

She added that the program has specific rules it needs to follow.

Barger said one of the reasons people reoffend is because of the environment they surround themselves with, the people they associate themselves with or trauma or mental illness they have not come to terms with.

She added that she also sees real criminals, people who need to be in jail. But that is not everyone, many people are incarcerated because they have disorders of some form.

Treatment court is not easy; it involves regular testing to see if an individual is using, mental health counseling and group counseling, all aimed at helping a person get into a healthy lifestyle. It is the hope that people who graduate from treatment court leave not only free from the legal system but also free from their dependency on drugs and alcohol, she said.

"It's way easier to not cope," she said. "People who have substance use disorder have a mental illness. They just don't want to have to cope with life it's just too overwhelming, and when somebody tells you that you've got to start making decisions based upon what's best for your sobriety and your mental health and the trauma that you have had in the past, it's really hard."

Most of the people who have substance use disorders have experienced some form of trauma in the past or have an additional mental illness and use drugs or alcohol in an attempt to self-medicate, she said. 

People get into unhealthy routines and create environments they feel comfortable with, surrounding their lives with people and things related to their addiction, but often times it also is what causes them to continuously reoffend, she said.

Treatment court is hard for people because it breaks those unhealthy habits and routines, she said.

That's what's hard, Barger said. "It's easy to be in custody and just have somebody bring your three meals a day. It's hard to be out and have somebody tell you what to do, and somebody tell you who you can associate with, somebody telling you where you can live."

People who go through treatment court have to completely remove themselves from toxic situations, Barger said. They cannot hang around the same people they used to if it could result in them using again, they cannot work where they used to if it may lead to them using again, they cannot live around the same people if it could result in them using again, she said.

"You give up everything when you go into treatment court and I think that's what's hard," she said, adding that although it may be hard for people, treatment court is there every step of the way with them and are there to help in anyway they can.

The biggest incentive for people who are going through treatment court, at first, is not going to jail, she said. But she has noticed that once they get about halfway through the program their incentive changes to something more personal. She added that she cannot speak for everyone who goes through treatment court because the reason why they want to live and stay sober could be different for everyone, it can relate to family, personal growth or various other things.

Barger said that treatment court is also always looking for new ways to incentivise people to get involved in the program, but it is becoming increasingly hard. Treatment court is a year-long program and is hard to complete, she said. If people are serving less than a year sentence or find the program too hard it is difficult to have them agree to enroll in the program.

The numbers

Program coordinator Paul Nugent said that the program has been successful but because of the increasing difficulty to find incentives for people the program is seeing less people accepting referrals to the program.

In 2019, from February to August, treatment court has had 16 people referred to the program, considerably fewer than that same time period in 2018, with 47, he said.

Barger said that the number of participants was down, but the program just received a grant at the beginning of October for the next year of operations and has seen a rise in the number of participants.

Nugent added that the graduation rate has been more than 50 percent, but because of the difficulty of the program, change in state laws and some actions made by the state Legislature, the program has not had as big of incentives to offer people.

Another challenge for the program in the area is participants who live on the Native American reservations, he said.

Treatment court intern and graduate from the program Darcy Azure said that one of the biggest problems Native American communities struggle with is substance abuse and if people are arrested who are from Rocky Boy's Indian Reservation, which has its own kind of treatment court program through the White Sky Hope Center, or Fort Belknap Indian Reservation, which does not have a treatment court system, Hill County treatment court often is unable to help them because of the issue of jurisdiction.

Azure said that this is something that is a disadvantage to those communities because they need help, as well.

"When I think of the city of Havre, I don't think of just Havre, I think Belknap to Rocky Boy," he said. "That is how big I think Havre is because we incomprise that whole population. They come through here constantly."

He said that the treatment court program is a great program for the community because participants can stay within and be active in the community while going through the program. Participants are able to see their families, keep their jobs and live in their homes.

The program is also considerably cheaper, he said. It costs about $69 per day just in facility costs for a person to sit in jail, while the treatment court program costs about $10, most of the cost being for alcohol or drug tests. He added that most of the cost is paid by the participants insurance. He added that participants using Medicaid will be charged an additional $5 a week, although that is significantly less than the cost of jail and is put on the individual to pay, not the taxpayer.

Drugs and alcohol abuse is a problem everywhere and no matter where people go their issues will follow them, Azure said. Treatment court is a way for people to deal with those issues, he added.

Nugent said that every participant who enrolls in the program gets chemical dependency evaluation and a mental health evaluation to see the underlying reasons for their dependency. Treatment court also partners with a number of other groups in the area to provide more care and help for its participants. He added that the program is also utilizing web-based group counseling, such as Alcoholics anonymous. He said the treatment court cannot instruct its participants which groups to be a part of, but can show them the options of the different groups available. He added that the web-based group counseling is very helpful for the region because of the rural nature of the state.

First hand experience

Azure said that without the treatment court program he would not be where he is today.

"Honestly it is life changing," he said. "When I was drinking I never thought about it. I wouldn't be here today without it. I would be nothing without this program."

Treatment court Compliance Office Kasi Tomaskie said that although she did not go through the Hill County treatment court she wishes that she did. When she was younger she had gotten arrested for driving under the influence and it was a struggle to get her life back in order. One of the reasons she wanted to work for treatment court was because she doesn't want to sugar coat her experience and wants to be able to honestly relate to people who went through something similar as she did and encourage them to get help.

"This is a big opportunity and I'm a full believer that this is something that's super important for these participants and it can turn their lives around and be life changing," she said. 

Barger

Barger said that treatment court is a vital part of the Hill County Judicial System and it is important to make sure the program continues. She said people need to be aware of who they are electing in both the state Legislature and U.S. Congress because the funding for the program comes from both entities and if the senator, or the congressional member or the state legislators don't support the treatment court funding it could have adverse effects on the program and the community. 

"It's expensive to have people in custody," she said. "It's expensive to pay welfare, it's expensive to pay for food stamps, it's expensive to take people's children away, it's expensive to run all of that through the district court, it's expensive to have kids placed in foster care, it's expensive to pay for the medical, it's expensive for them to house. It's just expensive, expensive, expensive, and I guess somewhere along the line maybe the administration and the taxpayers will realize that it's a lot cheaper to run people through a treatment court than to incarcerate them."