This American Life: Very Tough Love
This week: A drug court program that we believe is run differently from every other drug court in the country, doing some things that are contrary to the very philosophy of drug court. The result? People with offenses that would get minimal or no sentences elsewhere sometimes end up in the system five to ten years.
Part One.
Ira reports from Glynn County Georgia on Superior Court Judge Amanda Williams and how she runs the drug courts in Glynn, Camden and Wayne counties. We hear the story of Lindsey Dills, who forges two checks on her parents' checking account when she's 17, one for $40 and one for $60, and ends up in drug court for five and a half years, including 14 months behind bars, and then she serves another five years after that—six months of it in Arrendale State Prison, the other four and a half on probation. The average drug court program in the U.S. lasts 15 months. But one main way that Judge Williams' drug court is different from most is how punitive it is. Such long jail sentences are contrary to the philosophy of drug court, as well as the guidelines of the National Association of Drug Court Professionals. For violating drug court rules, Lindsey not only does jail terms of 51 days, 90 days and 104 days, Judge Williams sends her on what she calls an "indefinite sentence," where she did not specify when Lindsey would get out. (30 minutes) Part Two.
We hear about how Brandi Byrd and many other offenders end up in Judge Williams' drug court. One reason drug courts were created was to save money by incarcerating fewer people. But in Judge Williams' program, people like Brandi end up in drug court—at a cost of $350 per month—who would've simply gotten probation in most other Georgia counties. When offenders like Brandi are kicked out of the program—and half of participants in Judge Williams' drug court program don't successfully complete it—they go into detention, at a cost of $17,000 per year. Brandi did two years. We also hear how one model drug court participant, Charlie McCullough, was treated by Judge Williams. (25 minutes)
The transcript for this is also available at the weblink above.
What are your reactions?
I really recommend, if you are interested in this story, that you go here: http://www.drugpolicy.org/library/drugcourts.cfm to see an excellent report from Drug Policy Alliance outlining the overall problems with the Drug Court model, the iceberg of which Glynn County is only the tip:
ReplyDelete"Drug Courts are Not the Answer finds that drug courts are an ineffective and inappropriate response to drug law violations. Many, all the way up to the Obama administration, consider the continued proliferation of drug courts to be a viable solution to the problem of mass arrests and incarceration of people who use drugs. Yet this report finds that drug courts do not reduce incarceration, do not improve public safety, and do not save money when compared to the wholly punitive model they seek to replace. The report calls for reducing the role of the criminal justice system in responding to drug use by expanding demonstrated health approaches, including harm reduction and drug treatment, and by working toward the removal of criminal penalties for drug use."
Listening to the podcast, it seemed like the excessive penalties and violations of due process rights were more particular to Glynn County, but the report suggests otherwise. Thank you for sharing the link with us!
ReplyDeleteA question for everyone: what role should the criminal justice system play in responding to drug use, if any?
To offer a counter to article linked above, I am mindful of the incredible amount of violence fueled by drugs in the U.S. and internationally. Many of this is surely caused by criminalization, but I think it also occurs as a result of the vulnerability that many drugs create in their using populations. Greg Mortenson's book Stones into Schools describes how drug traffickers in Kashmir and parts of rural Afghanistan engineered influxes of opium into areas in order to foster addiction and gain political and economic control over the people in those areas. Some might argue that traffickers are using similar tactics (mostly for financial gain) with opiates and amphetamines in middle America. Should that be a factor in weighing this question?