Diversion program limits jail time, saves tax money
Preliminary study shows counseling, support services for low-level drug offenders appears to be working
A community effort to keep drug users out of jail by offering counseling and support services is significantly reducing taxpayer costs for some types of offenders, according to the New Mexico Sentencing Commission.
The preliminary analysis comes at the halfway point of a three-year study on the Law Enforcement Assisted Diversion program, also called LEAD. The commission was hired by the Santa Fe Community Foundation and others involved with LEAD to determine if the jail diversion program is reducing incarceration and court costs for some drug offenders.
It comes at a time when the LEAD program is gaining increasing traction across the United States. Started in the central city area of Seattle, the initiative has expanded to Santa Fe, Baltimore, Albany, N.Y., and other communities. Research and technical assistance for LEAD is supported by many drug-reform groups and organizations looking for alternatives to prison, such as the Open Society Foundations founded
by George Soros.
Last week, the Santa Fe Community Foundation hosted a LEAD Symposium in Santa Fe with police commanders and treatment advocates from Houston, Boulder, Denver, Las Cruces, Albuquerque and other cities that are trying to start their own LEAD programs.
The analytical study on LEAD in Santa Fe so far shows that clients who remain engaged with counseling and other services have lower jail incarceration costs after their referral to the program, with costs dropping by about 47 percent.
“With these initial and limited analyses, LEAD seems to [reduce] both the number of bookings and the number of days in jail for certain sub-categories of clients,” writes the New Mexico Sentencing Commission.
The goal of LEAD is to bring treatment and other services, such as housing and medical care, to low-offending drug users before they cycle through the courts, probation offices and, ultimately, jail.
Santa Fe police officers have been trained to identify offenders who are nonviolent and might be candidates for the program. Instead of making an arrest, they refer the person to The Life Link, a behavioral health organization that has a contract to provide services through LEAD. A caseworker is assigned to an offender, and then he or she is referred to an assortment of services, including group counseling and addiction treatment, if desired.
Drug dealers or those with felony warrants do not qualify for the program, and the target group for LEAD are those who shoplift or commit small larcenies to support a drug habit — what police call lowlevel drug users.
Jason Lidyard, an assistant district attorney with the First Judicial District Attorney’s Office, is now part of the LEAD team for that office. He prosecuted high-intensity drug cases for four years — and said it didn’t work. In a presentation to the LEAD Symposium, Lidyard described how drug offenders get deeper and deeper into trouble with the courts because they never receive proper treatment for their addiction.
Addicts, he said, will fail drug tests during probation and get sent back to prison. Once convicted of a felony, an offender no longer can qualify for food assistance or housing vouchers, and is even ineligible for student loans. A felony charge makes it harder to get a job, he added, and a person may feel he or she has little choice but to return to crime.
His argument is that many offenders who were ripe for treatment before entering the court system came out in worse shape. “I’ve seen this many times,” Lidyard said.
LEAD clients can take advantage of services and continue using drugs — or seek addiction treatment — as long as they don’t commit new crimes. To help with that, clients are provided financial assistance for housing and transportation, and help finding a job.
Addiction counselors also recognize that addicts use drugs to overcome pain and trauma in their life. Asking them to give up drug use has to include treating that trauma, Lidyard said.
One mother of a LEAD client told the symposium that her son had been unable to overcome addiction while undergoing rehabilitation programs in Santa Fe Albuquerque, Colorado and California. LEAD worked because it was nonjudgmental, she said.
“He knew if he relapsed, he wouldn’t be in jail,” she said. Today, she added, her 24-year-old son has a family of his own and has been sober for a year.
Retired Santa Fe police commander Jerome Sanchez said LEAD not only provides more effective treatment for addicts, but gets them out of the way of law enforcement.
Sanchez helped to bring the program to Santa Fe and has trained police officers here about addiction and what LEAD offers. Now he helps train departments across the United States.
“These are not cartel members,” he said. “I want to get rid of these people, so as a cop, I can take care of the child molesters and the drug dealers. Law enforcement has bigger priorities.”
Linda Freeman, the lead researcher for the Sentencing Commission said Santa Fe’s LEAD study is very limited so far because the program is small. It has data on just 85 clients who have been in LEAD for more than six months.
The final study will look at more than just jail time, and will include interviews with business owners about property crimes and measure costs for services as emergency medical services responses and other police involvement.
But so far Freeman said, the program is showing a significant reduction in jail and court costs for female clients who remain engaged with counseling and other services, dropping from $2,470 a year before LEAD to $1,330 after, based on a $95-a-night cost per inmate at the Santa Fe County jail.
There is so far less conclusive evidence about male LEAD clients, or those who are referred to LEAD but then don’t utilize its services, she said.