Drug court provides new option

WORLAND – A new court in partnership with the Wyoming Drug Court Association opened Thursday March 17 in Washakie County.

Family Treatment Court, informally known as drug court, was started by Judge Gary Hartman in Big Horn and Hot Springs counties, and Judge Robert Skar continued it, before recusing himself to avoid conflict, Judge Thomas Harrington, who resides over Family Treatment Court, said.

Through the Wyoming Drug Court Association drug court has been open for eight years, Judge Harrington said, but this is the first time Worland will have it. Previously, there have been clients from Worland and Hot Springs County participate in the drug court in Basin, Harrington said.

Drug court will take place in the Washakie County Courthouse every Thursday at 4:30 p.m., and are closed cases.

Drug court was brought to Washakie County after County Attorney John P. Worrall, Big Horn County’s Michelle Prather, Chief Public Defender H. Richard Hopkinson and Judge Harrington all sat down and discussed potential clients that could benefit from the program. “We sat down and brainstormed 10 or 12 names off hand,” Harrington said.

Who qualifies for drug court?

A viable drug court candidate would be someone who has some sort of offense in connection to drugs or alcohol, Harrington said. “They could be a juvenile, but most are young adults,” Harrington said.

“We take a spectrum of clients, but we’re probably not going to take someone with some kind of violent felony,” Harrington said.

To be eligible for drug court, a candidate also needs to have “an addiction severity index (ASI) or substance evaluation … and qualify for intensive outpatient treatment (IOP),” Harrington said.

Intensive outpatient treatments will be handled by Cloud Peak Services, in Worland, so clients don’t have to travel, Harrington said.

How drug court works

Drug court is voluntary, but a county attorney can make it a penalty in plea agreement so an individual can participate, Harrington said.

The first phase of drug court they (a client) will go to court every week, and they usually have group and individual counseling. Once they go into phase two the court requirement decreases and they will go a couple times a month, phase three is once a month and then they graduate from the program, Judge Harrington said.

“It usually takes a minimum of a year to go through it [the program],” Harrington said. “Depending on the client they could do it in a year and sometimes longer ... and some people don’t succeed.”

“The average time is a year and a half to two years,” Worrall said.

-As part of the program, there are many entities involved, Harrington said.

Once a week, the staff (that could be comprised of probation and parole officer, the Department of Family Services, a member of the prosecutor’s office, the judge, the counseling and treatment team and attorney) will meet an hour before drug court to discuss a client’s behavior throughout the week prior.

“We applaud and celebrate all their successes,” Harrington said. If they haven’t violated any rules they get a fish bowl full of prizes. “When they do things well, we try to celebrate it … that’ll have candy or shampoo in it.” If they’ve done everything they’re supposed to for a while they (like a clean drug test) then they’ll get a gift certificate to Maverik or someplace similar.

“If they have violated rules, we come up with a sanction, and … we have jurisdiction to put them in jail for 30 days without going back to court,” Harrington said. Jail time is usually the maximum sanction and people are held accountable in ways they could live with, Worrall said.

“We’ve seen a lot of success in Basin ... but we’ve also had people go through and land up in prison,” Harrington said, but he stated the program has had more successes than failures.

“We had a woman who had her kids taken away, and [because of the program and her success in it] she got them back and is now enrolled in college,” Harrington said.

Currently, there are five individuals enrolled in drug court in Worland, Worrall said.

How will drug court benefit Worland?

Harrington said the program [drug court] takes a holistic look at their clients.

“We check out their education level and we try to encourage them to get their GED if they don’t have one, some of them have certain disabilities and we work with Department of Vocational Rehabilitation and get them assessed to figure out what can they do or what their good at to help them get into school, if they are interested. We look at medical issues to get them healthy,” Harrington said.

“We try to work the whole scenario,” Harrington said.

“Most, but not all, people with substance abuse have an underlying issue like depression or PTSD … so we try to look at their mental health especially and address those issues,” he added.

Drug Court Goal

“The success rate is a lot higher than traditional approaches like probation and parole.” Worrall said. “Probation and parole is usually all or nothing. It’s proven to be a very successful program,” County Attorney Worrall said, and he said he will do “whatever he can to make sure Worland can keep the program.”

He added “The idea behind drug court is to help people help themselves. It was never utilized in the past … if we have one out of five people successfully pass the program then I would consider it a success.”

“When these people go to prison, it costs taxpayers $35,000 to $40,000 a year to house someone in the penitentiary. They’re producing nothing. They’re just an expense,” Worrall said. “If they go back to work and support their family, and don’t collect some of the welfare benefits that are out there, then that’s another 40,000 a year contributed back.”

“All of a sudden, we get one person out of the loop through drug court we’ve maybe saved $120,000 to $125,000 a year,” Worrall said. “It doesn’t take too many of those successful for this to really mean something. If we find a way to get them out of the loop [with drug court] maybe they won’t be back in. It’s an uphill battle, but it’s one worth fighting,” Worrall said.