SOUTHERN INDIANA — While it may not be an ideal solution, community leaders seem to agree that an over-burdened criminal justice system must better address what's so often right in front of them: a growing epidemic of drug addiction.
Floyd and Clark County sheriffs both have said a majority of their inmate population is booked in on drug-related charges. Stephanie Spoolstra, the executive director of addiction and recovery for the Indiana Department of Correction, said an estimated 80 percent of the state's prison inmates have some level of substance abuse history.
Drug-related crimes aren't new, and neither are inmates struggling with addiction. But what is changing is how prisons, jails and community corrections are addressing addiction in hopes of getting people real help and keeping them out of the revolving door to incarceration.
"I think that in the past, prison was viewed as punishment, it wasn't viewed as a restorative or rehabilitative program for people," Spoolstra said. "In Indiana, that's definitely changing."
In May 2015, state legislators passed a bill that put more emphasis on funding for local corrections programs while diverting the lowest level felony offenders from IDOC facilities and into county jails. That means more offenders for county jails to house, but it also means more opportunities for state funding. So when former Clark County Community Corrections Director Danielle Grissett had to apply for that extra money, she had to have a plan.
"So I went to all the judges and just kind of asked them, what would you like to see? ... And they were all very focused on treatment," said Grissett, who left the Community Corrections director post and moved to the probation office earlier this month.
Grissett said she thought a Forensic Diversion Program was one way to focus on treatment that she thought could be "very successful." Over several months, she gathered feedback and started the grant writing process. The idea was this: House offenders who have violated their probation in a community corrections facility for 90 days of intensive treatment. After the 90 days, offenders would be released and supervised for nine months while receiving treatment through LifeSpring Health Systems' Project 180.
Offenders in the Forensic Diversion Program will be on lockdown, receiving treatment around the clock, so they won't be able to work. Which means they won't be able to pay program fees — and they won't have to. Grissett said one of the things she thinks will make the program successful is the fact that it's at no cost to the offender.
With that proposal, the state approved an additional $175,00 in funding for Community Corrections. About $135,000 of that will go toward the Forensic Diversion Program, specifically to fund a full-time therapist and a program coordinator. Grissett said the rest of the operational costs — for things like toiletries and meals — will come from project income from other community corrections programs such as work release. There's only enough funding for the program to accommodate one gender, so only up to 25 men at a time will be enrolled in the program, for now. If it's successful, a program for women — which would about double program costs — could eventually be funded.
IF YOU BUILD IT, WILL THEY COME?
While administrators may be changing how they view the criminal justice system's role, there's a caveat. Spoolstra said that thinking still needs to trickle down to the culture among inmates. Despite the high number of IDOC offenders believed to have some history of substance abuse, only a small portion take advantage of drug treatment programs.
"There's still a heavy culture of criminal thinking and criminal behavior, and changing that is a huge chore for somebody," Spoolstra said.
Denise Poukish, LifeSpring's forensic program manager, knows how difficult it is just by looking at Project 180's "no-show" rate. Project 180 provides therapy and case management services — at no cost, specifically for people transitioning out of the criminal justice system. Poukish said the program was a response to the "overwhelming burden on the system." But last month, about 38 percent of Project 180 clients were no-shows.
It's that population — the people who keep going through the revolving door — that Poukish and Grissett hope to help through the Forensic Diversion Program. When an offender violates probation, a petition to revoke his probation is filed and he is put in jail. Grissett said that process can take months.
"So they're sitting in jail this entire time, so the thought behind forensic diversion is to use it as an option for someone that is not making it on probation, they're not making it in community corrections, and the reason they're not making it is because they're testing positive or they're not completing their treatment," she said.
Per state statute, violent offenders and drug-dealing offenders cannot be accepted into the program, Grissett added. But for the people who are accepted into the program — which will be decided by evaluations and input from judges — Grissett and Poukish hope to reverse the culture of criminal behavior. Participants will receive group and individual therapy, including moral reconation therapy, or MRT. MRT is designed to help offenders recognize their thought patterns and the consequences of their actions. Grissett said the evidenced-based method has proven to reduce recidivism.
After the 90 days, participants will receive outpatient treatment through Project 180 under Community Correction's supervision. When the full year of forensic diversion is up, the offender will continue with probation for as long as sentenced.
"The 90 days is going to give them the tools and then the nine months following that is going to be them using those tools," Grissett said.
CAN IT WORK?
Laura Holland-Beardwell described herself as a suburban "super mom" of four children who went to PTA meetings. She had a college degree, a good boyfriend and her own marketing business. She said nobody really knew she had become addicted to methamphetamine.
It started with Adderall so she could keep up with the pace of two jobs and raising a family. After about six months or so, her Adderall supply was cut off and she turned to meth. After a raid of her home in 2011, police discovered a meth operation in her garage. She was arrested, placed in jail for a few days and featured in local news. A warrant for her then-boyfriend was also issued.
"I was shell-shocked when I was arrested," she recalled. "Then it got worse instead of better, because I gave up."
Holland-Beardwell, now 38 years old, was arrested again in 2012 after being caught with ingredients for making meth in a van in which she was living. The charges from a year before were dismissed, but this time, she would spend "a year and one day" in jail. She describes that time as "hell." She was later released under the terms that she would complete an 18-month Drug Treatment Court program. That's how she started going to meetings, got a sponsor and worked with her assigned case manager.
While she said her case manager helped her find a new path, Holland-Beardwell doesn't credit the court-ordered program for her eventual recovery. She has the shock of jail to thank for that.
"... The program, itself, it was more stressful than it was helpful," she said, referring to frequent group meetings, random testing and being forced to move to a different home after a month into the program.
The program was later mired in accusations that participants were incarcerated for excessive amounts of time for unknown violations. It was later suspended and a civil suit against former Judge Jerome Jacobi — who presided over drug court — and other defendants was filed in February 2014. Former drug court participant Destiny Hoffman is the lone plaintiff in the pending lawsuit.
Holland-Beardwell is now sober and works as an on-site property manager at the Convenient Mobile Home Park in Jeffersonville. She said local jails and community corrections have to respond to the drug epidemic and the fallout of addiction, but they need to do it right.
"They need to design these programs as if they are designing it for their own self, or their own family members. Because you have to think of them as human beings," she said.
Poukish said treatment in the criminal justice system is actually "kind of an ideal situation," especially given the lack of resources outside of the system. And in lockdown, treatment providers have a captive audience.
"I kind of see it as positive in a way, because ... a lot of people wouldn't access services immediately if they weren't pushed," she said. "Sometimes coercive treatment is the first pathway for a person to get clean."
The proposed Forensic Diversion Program is expected to start up in the coming months. Clark County Community Corrections first needs to find a director to replace Grissett and then a coordinator for the new program. Grissett and others said measuring the program's success won't necessarily be in the numbers, especially since it can only serve 25 people at a time. Instead, success might be seen one person and one family at a time.