Legislature(2005 - 2006)BUTROVICH 205
03/14/2006 08:30 AM Senate JUDICIARY
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| Presentation: Therapeutic Courts | |
| Adjourn |
* first hearing in first committee of referral
+ teleconferenced
= bill was previously heard/scheduled
+ teleconferenced
= bill was previously heard/scheduled
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| += | SB 222 | TELECONFERENCED | |
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ALASKA STATE LEGISLATURE
JOINT MEETING
SENATE JUDICIARY STANDING COMMITTEE
HOUSE JUDICIARY STANDING COMMITTEE
March 14, 2006
8:40 a.m.
MEMBERS PRESENT
SENATE JUDICIARY
Senator Ralph Seekins, Chair
Senator Charlie Huggins, Vice Chair
Senator Gene Therriault
Senator Hollis French
Senator Gretchen Guess
HOUSE JUDICIARY
Representative John Coghill
Representative Peggy Wilson
Representative Les Gara
MEMBERS ABSENT
SENATE JUDICIARY
All members present
HOUSE JUDICIARY
Representative Lesil McGuire, Chair
Representative Tom Anderson
Representative Pete Kott
Representative Max Gruenberg
OTHER LEGISLATORS PRESENT
Representative Norman Rokeberg
COMMITTEE CALENDAR
Presentation: Therapeutic Courts
SENATE BILL NO. 222
"An Act relating to breaches of security involving personal
information, consumer report security freezes, consumer credit
monitoring, credit accuracy, protection of social security
numbers, disposal of records, factual declarations of innocence
after identity theft, filing police reports regarding identity
theft, and furnishing consumer credit header information; and
amending Rule 60, Alaska Rules of Civil Procedure."
SCHEDULED BUT NOT HEARD
PREVIOUS COMMITTEE ACTION
None to report
WITNESS REGISTER
Janet McCabe, Chair
Partners for Progress
POSITION STATEMENT: Made the introductions to the committee
Helen Harberts, Special Assistant District Attorney
Butte County, California
POSITION STATEMENT: Presented an overview regarding success of
therapeutic courts
Carson Fox, Prosecuting Attorney
South Carolina
POSITION STATEMENT: Presented an overview regarding success of
therapeutic courts
Robyn Johnson
Therapeutic Courts
POSITION STATEMENT: Added comments to the overview
ACTION NARRATIVE
CHAIR RALPH SEEKINS called the joint meeting of the Senate and
House Judiciary Standing Committees to order at 8:40:35 AM.
Present were Senators Hollis French, Charlie Huggins, and Gene
Therriault. Also present were Representatives Peggy Wilson, Les
Gara, and Co-Chair John Coghill.
^Presentation: Therapeutic Courts
Presentation: Therapeutic Courts
8:41:46 AM
JANET MCCABE, Chair of Partners for Progress introduced herself
and advised the committee that the two guests came to Juneau to
provide training for the Juneau Therapeutic Court.
Representative Rokeburg recently introduced HB 441, which
establishes a comprehensive and consistent structure for
Alaska's therapeutic courts to deal with repeat substance abuse
offenders. Alaska has twice the number of DUI deaths than any
other state, she contended. She introduced Helen Harberts and
Carson Fox.
8:44:30 AM
Rep David Guttenberg joined the meeting.
HELEN HARBERTS, Special Assistant District Attorney, Butte
County, California introduced herself. She said she is from a
conservative no-nonsense law enforcement-based culture. In her
community the predominant drug of choice is methamphetamine and
also houses the California State University at Chico, a
nationally recognized "party school." Out of that dubious
distinction, the county has an enormous alcohol and drug
problem.
8:46:44 AM
MS. HARBERTS recognized that Alaska has done extraordinary work
in the DUI court field. The therapeutic program in Butte County
was the first to successfully treat high-end DUI offenders with
Nalprexone and Alaska is now doing the same. She said she refers
to Alaska as a model community that has figured out what works
and has incorporated that treatment.
8:48:04 AM
Nationally drug courts have been studied inside and out. Studies
prove that the therapeutic court model works and reduces
recidivism rates. There are two kinds of people that the
criminal justice system deals with; addicts whose addiction
drives them to criminal behavior, and criminals who may or may
not use drugs. The criminals have to be watched differently than
the addicts. People who are addicted go through the drug court
model and usually come out tax-paying citizens and usually don't
come back. Drug courts stop the recidivism rate and that is a
nationally recognized trend.
8:50:24 AM
Drug courts are smart on crime, extremely effective with the
addicted population, amazingly cost-effective, and they save
prison space for those who really need to spend their life in
prison. Alaska is starting to see the "dreaded drug" known as
methamphetamine. Among meth addicts, the only thing known to
work is the drug court model. Nothing else has worked.
8:52:23 AM
The drug court model is perfect for Alaska DUI courts. High-end,
repeat felony offenders, left untreated come back time and
again. Meantime they kill people on the highways and create
havoc in the communities. A therapeutic court saves money, time,
and lives. It reduces recidivism rates, fetal alcohol syndrome,
drug-involved children, and reduces impact on dependency courts.
8:54:10 AM
MS. HARBERTS said the program is "the greatest thing since
sliced bread and mashed potatoes." Her primary mission has been
to pursue public safety by the most effective means and that now
means using therapeutic courts because they work. Her county has
seen a drop from a 70 percent recidivism rate to less than 20
percent since incorporation of the model.
8:55:34 AM
Senator Gretchen Guess joined the meeting.
REPRESENTATIVE LES GARA asked Ms. Harberts whether Nalprexone
worked on meth addicts.
MS. HARBERTS responded no. She said Nalprexone is an opiate
antagonist. It works extremely well with alcohol and with
opiates. It works well with Vicodin, OxyContin, and heroin
addicts. At this point there is nothing known that helps relieve
meth addiction.
REPRESENTATIVE GARA said he received a call from a person who
could not get into an alcohol treatment program. He asked
whether Naltrexone could be used without the treatment program.
MS. HARBERTS said Naltrexone helps people with cravings and it
allows them to focus on treatment. The goal of the drug court
and Naltrexone is to allow people to get into treatment and
stick with it. The real work that is done is done with cognitive
behavioral therapies inside treatment and treatment must be done
for the duration of one year.
8:57:44 AM
Representative Norman Rokeburg joined the committee.
REPRESENTATIVE JOHN COGHILL commented that since Alaska is still
in the pilot program phase they struggle with choosing who gets
to try the drug court. He asked Ms. Harberts how she has dealt
with the issue of deciding whether to go full scale with
therapeutic courts.
MS. HARBERTS said she did two things. She wrote the protocol and
then became the chief probation officer and implemented the
entire problem-solving court system. She also kept her feet in
the general fund because grants and pilot funding does not last.
She worked very hard to develop a core budget based in general
fund. She is an absolute advocate for mainstreaming and general
fund basing of this type of program because she ran the numbers
every year and found that her recidivism rate was 14.9 percent
down from 70 percent. She said she realized if she could
incorporate the program entirely the department's caseload would
drop by half in five years. Drug court was the salvation of her
department, she stated.
9:01:36 AM
REPRESENTATIVE PEGGY WILSON asked Ms. Harberts whether she had
to hire new people or whether she simply trained her existing
staff to work differently.
MS. HARBERTS said both. The drug court model is counter-
intuitive and makes no sense. Everything is backwards and it
takes a lot of training, for instance, prosecutors do not talk
much in court. The outcome is that it works. As the program grew
she hired new people but to begin with she chose people who were
the most capable of learning something that was counter-
intuitive.
REPRESENTATIVE WILSON asked Ms. Harberts whether she thought it
was possible to ramp up the courts without an initial monetary
impact.
MS. HARBERTS said the cost would be in supervision resources and
treatment resources with some account for court time. Otherwise
it is a front-loaded program but the offset on the other end is
huge and keeps people out of jail.
9:06:02 AM
REPRESENTATIVE COGHILL said he watched a therapeutic court
graduation and it was an intensive personal interaction. He
asked her to give an example of how they determine that a person
is not a criminal but an addict that possesses criminal
behavior.
MS. HARBERTS informed the committee of the assessment
instruments such as the "LSIR." It is an objective-based
assessment that allows the department to identify who the
criminals are. A district attorney can also pull out the rap
sheet and look to see where the predominant criminal activity
has been. It is easy to identify the addict when the predominant
criminal activity is basic theft, basic driving and basic
possession types of crime. Rap sheets that are littered with
crimes against people and property denote a criminal that has a
drug problem. There are, of course, other technologies that one
can use to determine whether or not a person is a psychopath.
9:09:37 AM
SENATOR FRENCH asked the reason her county has more people under
felony supervision and not in the "wellness court."
MS. HARBERTS said two things. One of them is that wellness
courts go against the existing criminal justice paradigm. The
other is that Butte County has prepared filings for bankruptcy
on three occasions and she is constantly fighting for funding.
On the other hand, she said, there are 850 people that she is
supervising in her courts now, so changes have been made.
9:11:54 AM
SENATOR FRENCH asked the number of years that her program has
been in effect.
MS. HARBERTS responded she started the first program in 1995.
SENATOR FRENCH said with a decade of experience, she could
probably demonstrate the enormous savings to the county in way
of prison beds and corrections officers.
MS. HARBERTS agreed and advised that people thank her for her
contributions but do little else.
9:13:37 AM
REPRESENTATIVE WILSON asked Ms. Harberts whether there is
anything that works with meth.
MS. HARBERTS said she has never seen anything that works except
the drug court model because it harms the brain in a distinct
way. Meth addicts are arrested more frequently than other
addicts and treatment takes longer than other addictions. Meth
addicts experience short-term memory deficits and experience up
to a year of active auditory and visual hallucinations.
9:16:26 AM
REPRESENTATIVE COGHILL asked what changes she has seen in
treatment models.
MS. HARBERTS said one of the best things she has seen come out
of the drug court model is an insistence on research-based
practices.
REPRESENTATIVE COGHILL asked about including judges in the
vision process.
MS. HARBERTS responded, "Traditionally the judiciary is the
slowest moving and most conservative branch of government and is
the bellwether against widening swings." Our form of government
works very well but doesn't work in drug courts, she said.
People have to keep talking to the judges and give them a break
because some judges are rated on how fast they can move
caseloads and drug courts are not churning out numbers.
9:21:53 AM
REPRESENTATIVE ROKEBURG asked Ms. Harberts for recommendations
in dealing with cultural conflicts.
MS. HARBERTS said be nice. It is still the same fundamental
business but prosecutors and corrections now have jurisdiction
to "pay attention to monsters."
REPRESENTATIVE ROKEBURG asked the technology used to deal with
the criminals and addicts.
MS. HARBERTS said they use the "SCRAM" in DUI courts but GPS
technologies do not work in her county. There is new technology
that measures metabolites in urine and detects alcohol use back
three days but it is not currently affordable to her budget.
9:27:13 AM
CHAIR SEEKINS thanked Ms. Harberts for her time.
9:29:51 AM
CARSON FOX, South Carolina Attorney, advised the committee that
he comes today to testify on drug courts because they work. His
area had a big problem with crack cocaine. They found the drug
court model and he was tasked with putting it together.
The first program started in 1989 in Miami, Florida because the
problem with cocaine was so significant that they gave a judge a
sabbatical to research how to better deal with the problem. He
found that monitoring people closely and giving them intensive
treatment. Today there are almost 2,000 courts and they also
have them in South America.
9:32:23 AM
MR. COX said when he started working with drug courts the
recidivism rate for multiple offenders was over 50 percent and
is now below 20 percent. The numbers are so well proven that the
New York system now requires every district to have at least one
drug court and they save over $1 billion dollars a year.
Multnomah County in Portland, Oregon determined that for every
dollar they spend on drug court programs they save $10 dollars.
9:36:45 AM
MR. COX advised the committee that he and Ms. Harberts spent
time training people in the local wellness court in behavior
modification and ethics. He offered to answer questions.
REPRESENTATIVE COGHILL asked Mr. Cox the number of times the
state has to come down on the people who fail the drug court.
MR. FOX said it depends on the individual. A recent study shows
that intervention by the judge works because it gets people's
attention. Using intervention as quickly as possible is a way to
make the model work better.
REPRESENTATIVE COGHILL asked him to talk about the tipping point
before they have to send people to jail.
9:40:12 AM
MR. FOX indicated it was an individualistic meter. There are
some programs that will designate certain things that get people
kicked out instantly. Nationally 70 percent of people succeed
through the courts.
REPRESENTATIVE COGHILL asked Mr. Cox to address the issue of
people who have mental health issues and use drugs.
MR. FOX advised that judges refer those people over to the
Mental Health Board.
9:44:53 AM
REPRESENTATIVE ROKEBERG asked Mr. Fox his opinion of granting a
limited driver's license in certain circumstances as a means of
positive reinforcement.
MR. FOX said due to Alaska's large area with no or limited
public transportation; it could become a jurisdictional issue.
He agreed that at times it is necessary in order to keep rural
people in the program.
REPRESENTATIVE ROKEBERG asked how other jurisdictions handle
multiple offender clients in terms of coordination between the
courts.
MR. FOX advised it depends on the jurisdiction. Some states
probation falls under the judiciary and other states it falls
under the executive branch so it takes a coordination of
services. The key components are training and coordination. He
has seen judges cooperate between courts and coordinate the
transfer of the person.
9:49:49 AM
REPRESENTATIVE ROKEBERG asked Mr. Fox the distinction between
the DUI court and the drug court in the types of treatment
elements.
MR. FOX advised it is a different population. Alcohol is an
insidious drug but treatment is different. For example, the
testing for alcohol is very different than testing for other
drugs. From a prosecutor's point of view, drugs like meth do
damage to the brain in six months what alcohol generally takes
20 years to do.
9:53:49 AM
SENATOR HUGGINS noted that the veteran's court in Anchorage is
based on the drug court model. He asked whether there are any
indicating demographics or traits established in the court
population.
MR. FOX responded drug courts started out as a grass roots
program and the local population will differ from jurisdiction
to jurisdiction.
SENATOR HUGGINS asked him to describe the role that marijuana
plays in the drug courts.
MR. FOX stated that marijuana is far more potent than it was in
the past and is virtually a different drug. People are
overdosing and becoming addicted.
10:00:56 AM
SENATOR HUGGINS asked Mr. Fox his thoughts on the difference
between addicts and criminals.
MR. FOX replied the issue was individualistic and one difference
is that addicts become criminals to support their habit and
without the addiction wouldn't normally display criminal
behavior.
10:03:42 AM
SENATOR HUGGINS asked him to comment on early intervention.
MR. FOX responded addiction doesn't know an age. When people
start using drugs the brain stops developing. Treatment
professionals work with people who are developmentally much
younger than their age. The approach is to apply accountability
no matter what the age is.
10:07:15 AM
MS. HARBERTS added juveniles are not little adults and the brain
development is unique. Adolescent criminals do not have the
capability of handling compound, complex tasks.
10:10:38 AM
SENATOR HUGGINS asked her to comment on Fetal Alcohol Syndrome
(FAS).
MS. HARBERTS said there is a huge correlation between FAS and
alcohol and drug addictions. The same is true with children born
inside homes where adults use meth. There are developmental
issues and some are treatable and some are not. Addiction
treatment experts will advise that early intervention prevents
addiction.
10:13:33 AM
CHAIR SEEKINS said 85 percent of Alaska prisoners are indigent
drunks and many people don't want to change.
MS. HARBERTS said the higher end people would decline the
invitation to treatment. It is a myth that a person has to
bottom out before they would accept help.
MR. FOX added that a 33-year study concluded the longer a person
is in treatment, the better they do. There generally is no
impact when treatment lasts less than 90 days.
10:18:28 AM
ROBYN JOHNSON, Therapeutic Courts Program Coordinator,
introduced herself and offered to answer questions.
REPRESENTATIVE ROKEBERG asked Ms. Johnson for an overview of the
Alaska Therapeutic Court system.
MS. JOHNSON informed the committee there are three different
courts. The mental health court in Anchorage is one of the first
in the country and is going very well and a second one was added
in Palmer last year. The first two addiction courts were opened
as a result of HB 179 and were a felony DUI court in Anchorage
and Bethel. A misdemeanor wellness court was established in
Anchorage and has expanded to incorporate state offenders.
In the past two years they have received funding from the Alaska
Office of Highway Safety and the Department of Transportation
(DOT).
10:21:12 AM
MS. JOHNSON added they are adding a wellness court in Fairbanks
and that Anchorage also has a non-criminal family care court for
those at risk of losing parental rights. In Anchorage they have
a felony drug court and a felony DUI court as well.
REPRESENTATIVE ROKEBERG noted that he has preliminary approval
for $900,000 from the DOT as a result of the "seatbelt bill."
10:22:37 AM
CHAIR SEEKINS thanked everyone for the presentation.
There being no further business to come before the committee,
Chair Seekins adjourned the meeting at 10:23:05 AM.
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