City gets grant to keep addicts out of jail

WOONSOCKET – The Woonsocket Police Department has won a federal grant of $819,000 to develop a program to steer drug abusers

small cotics away from the criminal jus- tice system and into treatment – a first-of-its-kind initiative in the state for a law enforcement agency.

The three-year, Law Enforcement Assisted Deflection, Engagement and Retention in Treatment (LEADER) grant, from the U.S. Department of Justice Assistance, was announced jointly by the state’s congressional delegation, including U.S. Senators Jack Reed, U.S. Rep.

David Cicilline and U.S. Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, whose 2016 Comprehensive Addiction and Recovery Act (CARA) supplied the funding for the program.

Police Chief Thomas F. Oates III said the WPD and Community Care Alliance will play a major role in

but he credited Associate Superior Court Justice Kristin Rodgers with serving as the catalyst for it. It was she, Oates said, who initially contacted him – he’s known her for years – to see if the WPD was interested in developing a new initiative to channel drug abusers into treatment instead of jail after plans to launch the program elsewhere fell through.

Oates says the program represents a new front for law enforcement in Rhode Island that is focused on prevention rather than punishment, a necessary angle to combat the demand side of the narcotics equation as the state is engulfed in a opioid addiction crisis that’s been aggravated by the pandemic.

“We’re never going to win this war on drugs by arresting users and putting them in jail, which is costly for everybody and they’re not getting the help they need to begin with,” Oates said. “This is to try and break that revolving cycle and to help keep them from getting their lives destroyed.”

The grant is designed to provide treatment and supportive services to as many as 80 drug users who live – not just in Woonsocket – but Lincoln, Cumberland, North Smithfield, Pawtucket, Central Falls and

Providence who are routinely arrested by the WPD, according to a separate statement issued by the U.S. Attorney Zachary Cunha.

But Woonsocket has been exceptionally hard-hit by the

opioid addiction crisis. While the city has only about 4 percent of the state’s population, in 2020 – the last year full data was available for comparative analysis – about 10 percent of all overdose fatalities originated in Woonsocket, according to RIDOH. There were 32 fatalities that year, while the state logged a record 384 total overdose fatalities.

The number of fatalities dipped to 337 in 2021, but RIDOH does not have a geographic breakdown on its website for last year.

Oates said the logistics of the diversion program have not yet been ironed out, but he is cautiously optimistic that the first clients could be admitted within several months. He predicts CCA will absorb the lion’s share of the resources from the grant for intake, counseling, referrals and follow-up, but he said members of the WPD will require funds for training in how to identify suitable candidates.

The whole idea, Oates said,

stands on its head the traditional diversion concept now in use in the courts. Sometimes, referrals to treatment are swapped in court for light probationary sentences, but the goal of LEADER is to keep certain drug offenders from ever seeing the inside of a jail cell or a courtroom, period.

Critics of the existing method say it still leaves offenders yoked to a criminal record that can set back their efforts to reenter society as productive people for years, often by making it hard to get a job.

One issue that will have to be resolved is who chooses candidates for the program. The chief says the picks will likely be the result of a consensus decision that involves state prosecutors, the public defender’s office, the treatment professionals and the police. Guidelines for followup and monitoring of clients must also be settled before the program gets under way.

“Are they showing up to meetings? Are they taking their medications? Are they going to mental health counseling?” said Oates. “We recognize recovery doesn’t happen on the first go-around sometimes. People slip. People make mistakes.”

Senator Reed praised Whitehouse for co-authoring the landmark legislation that’s supplying the resources for the program.

“I commend Senator Whitehouse for his leadership on this issue and applaud the Woonsocket Police Department for winning this grant and working to put more Rhode Islanders on the path to recovery,” Reed said. “This federal funding will help save lives and change lives for the better. It gives people a chance to get treatment and the level of care they need. It will also help save taxpayers by reducing avoidable health and social service expenditures related to the costs of untreated addiction.”

Cicilline echoed those sentiments, expressing hope that the funding “will enable the Woonsocket Police Department to develop a program to divert individuals at high risk for overdose from the criminal justice system, putting Rhode Islanders on a path to recovery instead of incarceration, and saving lives and saving families.”

Whitehouse said the CARA bill is working as he intended “to get more Rhode Islanders

on the long-noble road to recovering.”

“Judge Rodgers, Chief Oates and their partners are helping lead the way,” he said.

A policeman for about 47 years, Oates said Judge Rodgers looked to him for help in launching the diversion program after the pandemic apparently derailed plans to do so in West Warwick. Oates said he has known Rodgers, as well as her late father, former Presiding Superior Court Judge Joseph Rodgers for many years, partly as a result of his prior service with the Providence Police Department, where he worked for 36 years, retiring as second-in-command to take the chief’s job in Woonsocket in 2016.

“On behalf of the various partners who have developed LEADER in Treatment, we are excited to implement this unique program that places individuals who are accused of certain non-violent offenses and who may be struggling with a substance use disorder and/or co-occurring disorder in a health-centered setting rather than the criminal justice setting,” Judge Rodgers said. “This is not just an alternative-to-incarceration program but an alternative to the criminal justice system altogether, and we hope it will pave the way for healthy, productive living for each participant.”