Palmer considers drug court option

WASILLA — Local court officials are seeking a federal grant to expand drug court to the Mat-Su.

A steering committee of court officials has filed an application for a $300,000, three-year federal grant to pay for a probation officer to manage enforcement for a potential court, said Kristin Hull, therapeutic courts manager for the Palmer court. Court officials have so far only established a steering committee to look at the possibility of the drug court, meaning a lot of details have not been established. Word on the grant was potentially due back by September, Hull said.

“We just submitted (the application),” Hull said.

Drug courts allow defendants to complete a course of drug treatment instead of a prison term. Defendants plead guilty or no contest for drug possession and drug-related property crimes in a single case, according to an informational pamphlet published by the Alaska Court System.

Enrollees in a drug court undergo court-ordered drug therapy, meaning urine analysis (UA) testing and other conditions for a course of treatment must be completed, effectively giving rehabilitation the force of law, Hull said. Defendants who don’t complete a one-year treatment period can receive fines, or ultimately be returned to serve the full jail sentence.

That contrasts with standard district court and superior court sentences, which sometimes set “the successful completion of a drug or alcohol treatment program” as a condition for release, without specific criteria or monitoring beyond that, or which incarcerate drug addicts, then release them, Hull said.

Participation in numerous drug and alcohol rehabilitation programs is voluntary, which can pose a risk for recidivism if other treatment requirements aren’t met, Hull said.

“They (the programs) don’t have any teeth,” she said.

A court order can also help those accused of drug crimes gain better access to treatment regimes, Hull said.

Similar drug courts exist in Anchorage, Bethel, Juneau and Ketchikan. The courts have been active since 1999, according to a 2012 report by the University of Alaska Anchorage Center For Justice.

Michelle Bartley, the statewide therapeutic courts manager, said a number of factors play into whether or not the courts will expand into a set area, and how many people are allowed to enroll.

“The volume of cases is always one (issue),” she said. “The will of the community in terms of support for a therapeutic court, the availability of treatment resources and services. There are multiple factors at play when we consider locations. Palmer is a location we have been looking at for many years.”

The Anchorage drug courts have a maximum capacity of about 90 accused at any one time, Bartley said. Enrollment in the court ebbs and flows, and the courts often run below the full capacity.

Bartley referred questions about the court’s success rate to the Center for Justice report, which examined recidivism rates for the first decade. Misdemeanants who graduated from drug court were a third less likely to be re-arrested or re-convicted, while non-graduating misdemeanants recorded higher re-arrest and re-conviction rates. In all, misdemeanant outcomes differed slightly or not at all.

However, felons enrolled in drug court were re-arrested at rates 10 percent less than felons who did not (36 percent for non-drug-court felons vs. 26 percent for drug court enrollees), and re-convicted at a rate about 7 percent less than felons who did not enroll in drug court, according to the study.

The federal funding option went on the table in part as a result of the oil price slump, Bartley said.

“The state’s budget crisis does not lend itself to more money and therapeutic courts are a resource-intensive proposition,” she said.

District Attorney Roman Kalytiak said he’s been involved in a few planning meetings about drug court.

“There’s a big drug problem in Alaska,” he said. “Specifically here, heroin and methamphetamine, though in my discussion with district attorneys elsewhere, it’s across the country.”

A potential drug court would compliment the existing mental health court, which allows those suffering from mental health conditions to receive court-ordered treatment, rather than jail time. Violent offenders would be excluded from participating, Kalytiak said.

Prosecutors face touch choices with drug crime, some of which eventually connects to property and violent crimes, Kalytiak said.

“Either prosecutors can get involved on the front end, or prosecutors can get involved on the back end,” he said.

Contact reporter Brian O’Connor at 352-2270, brian.oconnor@frontiersman.com, or on Twitter @reporterbriano.