INDIANAPOLIS — Sentencing reform stalled in the Statehouse last session, but efforts to reduce Indiana’s prison population are moving forward in courthouses around the state.
In more than one-third of Indiana’s 92 counties, judges have established “problem-solving” courts aimed at delivering justice without incarcerating offenders.
The defendants who show up in these courts include drug addicts, troubled military veterans and the mentally ill. How they landed in trouble varies widely.
But what they share in common is how their cases are handled: Instead of being sentenced to serve time behind bars, they’re diverted to treatment programs and remain closely supervised by the court system that put them there.
The numbers of defendants involved are still small, but the problem-solving courts are relieving some pressure from the state’s overcrowded prison system — a goal of the sentencing reform legislation derailed by “tough on crime” opponents.
At a recent seminar on the court system, Indiana Supreme Court Chief Justice Randall Shepard said the rise in problem-solving courts is evidence that local judges are “racing forward” with their own version of sentencing reform without waiting for the legislature to act.
Driving the growth, Shepard said, are judges who are questioning the old models of lock-em-up justice by asking the question: “What is the sanction that best fits this crime and maximizes the chances there won’t be another one?”
That question motivated Vanderburgh County Judge Wayne Trockman to establish one of state’s first problem-solving courts 10 years ago when he started the county’s “drug court,” modeled on a pioneering drug court started in Vigo County in 1996.
Trockman said his county’s court dockets were crowded with drug cases involving non-violent offenders charged with committing low-level crimes to feed their addictions.
Rather than sending them to jail or dismissing the charges, Trockman thought there was a better way: Divert the defendant into a comprehensive treatment program, keep them under close supervision of the court after they complete it, and make them accountable for breaking the cycle of drug use, crime and incarceration.
Most have done well staying drug-free and crime-free; that reflects national statistics from the U.S. Department of Justice and other sources that found lower rates of recidivism by defendants who successfully move through the problem-solving courts.
Not every drug defendant qualifies — violent offenders, habitual offenders and big-time drug dealers are out — but for those who do, the option is better than sending them to an Indiana Department of Correction prison. “There’s nothing corrective about incarcerating addicts,” Trockman said.
There are now 43 problem-solving courts in 32 Indiana counties, with at least six more in the planning stages. In 2010, the Indiana General Assembly passed a bill to set standards for the courts, anticipating more on the rise.
Long before the Legislature acted, local judges moved to expand beyond drug courts and into other areas where intervention seemed more appropriate than imprisonment.
In Madison County, Judge Dennis Carroll launched a “mental health court” four years ago. On the bench for 30 years, Carroll has seen many people show up in his court charged with a crime but whose real problem was mental illness, he said.
“We know there’s a large number of people in the prison system with underlying mental health problems,” Carroll said.
Like Trockman’s drug court, Carroll’s mental health court diverts defendants from prison by moving them into comprehensive treatment program, closely monitored by the judge and approved by a team of court personnel, including the prosecutor.
Court staff provide support along the way, but defendants have been terminated from the program for their failure to comply. Defendants who are violent or diagnosed with conditions that can’t be treated aren’t eligible. “This is not a hug-a-thug program,” Carroll said.
Floyd County Judge Martha Grafton sees problem-solving courts as “agents for change.”
That’s why she plans to start a problem-solving court for veterans by the year’s end. Modeled on similar courts around the nation, it’s designed to deal with military veterans whose crimes stem from their struggles with substance abuse and mental health issues related to their combat experience.
Defendants are offered treatment in lieu of prison and remain under the court’s long-term supervision to make sure they stay crime-free and drug-free. “It’s therapeutic justice,” Grafton said.
The wife of a veteran and the stepmother to a soldier killed in action, Grafton started work on the project after seeing an increasing number of veterans appearing in her court who’d gotten in trouble with the law after serving several tours of duty.
“They were coming back home with multiple issues — drug addictions, post-traumatic stress syndrome, domestic violence — that quickly became intertwined with legal issues,” Grafton said.
Using her judicial power to get those veterans into long-term treatment programs to re-stabilize their lives serves the veteran and public safety, she argues.
“It’s appropriate for us to punish and deter people from crime by putting them in prison,” Grafton said. “But most inmates are going to come back into our communities, so it’s also appropriate for us to intervene when we can to keep them from committing another crime.”
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