Restorative Justice Overview, March 2010

More than two decades of criminal justice and drug policy reform

Timeline

Ø      1997 – Law Revision and Commission report to the Judiciary Committee

Ø      1998 – Community Court Opens in Hartford

Ø      2001 - CT Center for Econ. Analysis report on Alternatives to Incarceration

Ø      2001 - ACLU wins court decision to protect Needle Exchange programs

Ø      2002 - ABWF secures millions of dollars for treatment/services in North Hartford

Ø      2002 - Community Court expanded to include urban and suburban cities/towns

Ø      2003 - Justice Reinvestment passes

Ø      2003 - Prison Overcrowding passes enacted in 2004

Ø      2003 - Building Bridges from Conviction to employment Part I

Ø      2004 - Building Bridges from Conviction to Employment Part II

Ø      2004 - Established Board of Pardons and Paroles

Ø      2005 - Program Review and Investigations Committee passed

Ø      2005 - Crack and Powder Cocaine parity passed

Ø      2005 - Expanded Access to Recovery to include crack and meth treatment

Ø      2006 - Trinity College Conference. Illicit Drugs: Burden and Policy

Ø      2006 - Clean Slate Pardons Reform

Ø      2006 - Expansion of the Connecticut Pardons Team

Ø      2007 - Raise the Age passes

Ø      2007 – Medical Marijuana passes legislature but vetoed by the Governor

Ø      2008 - Rejection of Governor Proposed three strikes legislation

Ø      2008 - Racial and Ethnic Impact Statement passes

Ø      2009 - Racial Impact Statements used for drug free school zone reform

Ø      2010 – Restorative Justice campaign launched


For more than two decades Connecticut residents, business owners, academics, state
agency staff, legal/medical professionals and legislators have been working to reduce
prison populations, expand access to treatment and mitigate state budget deficits
through legislative criminal justice and drug policy reform.  Above is a short list of
successful campaigns and policy reforms that have proven to do just that.

The Restorative Justice coalition will run a campaign that will draw on community
advocate’s experience, agency staff knowledge of best practices and responsible
legislative priorities in order to:

1.      Reduce prison populations by expanding the Access To Recovery to include
frontend diversion strategies.

2.      Reduce drug related adjudications within the criminal justice system by
expanding Community Court programs throughout the Judicial Branch.

3.      Address mental health and nonviolent calls for service through Crisis
Intervention teams inside local police departments.

4.      End Connecticut’s drug war through the control and regulation,
decriminalization, and medicalization of all drugs.

5.      Expand public health strategies to address the spread of infectious diseases
through intravenous drug use with heroin maintenance programs

Where are we now?

Over the past year advocates and organizers have been discussing the potential of
creating a significant shift in Connecticut.  This shift is designed to identify resources
for adequate mental health/drug treatment, housing, healthcare, and education
services for Connecticut residents.

This shift will be articulated through a campaign called Restorative Justice.  This
comprehensive campaign will look at practical shifts within Connecticut’s departments
of Corrections and Mental Health and Addiction Services (DMHAS) that will reallocate
existing state resources by physically moving beds currently in the department of
corrections into community based and hospital based facilities, the retraining of
corrections, parole, and probation officers to serve as crisis intervention officers
whom will evaluate and respond to suspected drug addiction and mental health
situations, and an expansion of the Community Court model to adjudicate drug relate
offenses like shoplifting and prostitution throughout the criminal justice system.

The argument for this shift is based on the premise that a person’s behavior should
be assessed and addressed through the appropriate state agency.  Currently instead
of a street worker’s behavior being addressed by the system that behavior poses the
most threat to, in this case Public Health it is addressed through the Criminal justice
system, which is a significantly more expensive strategy.  This has resulted in
expensive prison beds being used instead of affordable treatment beds forcing state
agencies like DMHAS to reallocate treatment and service money to prison facilities
and not to community based programs.  For instance:

Ø      A street worker being incarcerated for 30 days to “dry out” cost the state
significantly more money in corrections than a community treatment and services
program bed.

Ø      Hospital emergency room beds are regularly occupied by drug addicted and
mentally ill people who cannot access acute care services for simple addiction without
being incarcerated. The state pays for this through uncompensated care.

Ø      Much of the police overtime in municipalities can be reduced through the
reallocation of staff and money to crisis intervention teams.

Background:  Is Connecticut ready for this campaign?

Yes, for at least 20 years Connecticut residents, elected officials, business owners,
medical professionals, programs specialist, social workers, and legal professionals
have been studying and advocating for real criminal justice and drug policy reform.

Over the past 20 years public health and treatment dollars have followed people into
corrections as opposed to being available through community-based services in the
community.  Also people should be able to access those services without entering the
criminal justice system.  The Restorative Justice campaign seeks to accomplish this
goal through shifts in public policy, agency policy and public education.  A threat to
the state’s public health should be addressed by the public health and treatment
systems.  The current system and modalities are bankrupting the riches state in the
union.

Campaigns to dismantle Connecticut’s drug war through parole, probation, drug
policy, sentencing, and reintegration reform have produced thousands of developed
advocates whom understand the criminal justice and treatment systems.  These
campaigns have also recognized a shared understanding between “the system” and
“the people”; that a punitive approach to drug use and petty crime is too expensive
and not smart.  ‘Let’s be smart on crime, not just tough’ is a common sentiment but it
reduces the conversation to parochial strategies that are difficult to expand.

Instead we are suggesting we rethink what is crime.  Should addiction be seen as a
crime against the state or a individual Hell that the state could assist escape from?
Let’s be smarter about addiction and realistic about crime.  Restorative Justice
focuses on reform through fiscally responsible proposals that allow the rebuilding of
communities and the delivery of justice regardless of individual circumstances.

Connecticut’s progressive reforms like parity in crack powder sentencing, passage of
resources for and access to criminal record expungement, raising the age of
jurisdiction for juvenile offenders, removing questions of felony convictions from
municipal and city/vender job applications, attempts to abolish the death penalty and
the passage of Racial and Ethnic Impact Statements have educated the public on
how the system works and how to identify system allies to make changes. These
campaigns have resulted in the creation of collaborative efforts between state
agencies and community advocates and have produced some of the nation’s first
and/or best progressive drug policy, treatment, and criminal justice reform.

For example:

Ø      Acute care for crack and meth users

Ø      Pushing youth out of mainstream schools and into adult education

Ø      Office for criminal justice research at Central College

Ø      Access to clean syringes over the counter

Ø      Protection of needle exchange vans and clients from law enforcement

Ø      Abolishing the death penalty, and so on


All of these campaigns and hundreds of others like medical marijuana, drug school
zones reform and school to prison pipeline focus on one premise, making Connecticut
safer for the public while being smarter with the allocation of the public’s money and
resources.

Because of Connecticut’s relative small geographic size and even smaller available
residential spaces these campaigns have shared advocates and leaders in a way that
is unique to a small state like ours.  This means that the average advocate, business
owner, or elected official in Connecticut is very familiar with any significant campaign
in the state.  Evidence of this shared leadership can be seen in the immediate and
public beating back of three strikes proposals.  Many of the arguments against three
strikes came from people who have worked hard to move away from a simple
punitive approach to societal ills and towards responsible systemic change that has
been proven to be less expensive and more productive.

One campaign in particular that articulates this hybrid advocacy between community
advocates and system staff is Justice Reinvestment.


The Justice Reinvestment campaign successfully streamlined the parole process for
low-risk offenders, addressed the high rate of probation violations, and develops a
comprehensive strategy to reduce recidivism.  Though this campaign was run
completely inside the legislature and state agencies community advocates and
businesses were able to build grassroots and grasstops campaigns around shared
language gleaned from Justice Reinvestment.  This resulted in the development of
system-educated advocates and community minded bureaucrats, legislators and state
agency staff.  As a result of Justice Reinvestment felony disenfranchisement,
comprehensive drug and mental health treatment, transitional housing and harm
reduction have become communal demands shared by all sides. The only
disagreement is how we do it.  The Restorative Justice campaign is an articulation of
necessary systemic changes that will continue all of our work.

How do we do it?

Currently in Connecticut the desire for access to treatment is a demand being leveled
at the state legislature and the state agencies/departments.  Evidenced in the
expansion of the Community Court in 2002, Access To Recovery in 2005, and
streamlined treatment services inside prison facilities in 2002 and expanded parole
and pardons access/support in 2004 .

The Community Court works because it houses social workers who are able to
connect people to the immediate services they need, Access To Recovery works
because the services it provides are comprehensive and built around the needs of the
individual client.  While these two examples come with specific shortcomings we
believe these shortcomings can be addressed through relatively simple agency policy
changes and legislative reform.  Consider:

Ø      Remake the Judicial department through Community Court and apply the
model across the judicial system.  The Judicial department would operate like the
Community Court and we can set up smaller courts to deal with violent crimes.

Ø      Continue the state’s Justice Reinvestment strategy

Ø      Remake DMHAS to be Access To Recovery.  Currently it is a program of
DMHAS.

Ø      Decriminalize drug possession & abolish current mandatory minimums for drug
possessing drugs

Ø      Establish heroin maintenance/methadone programs in community health
centers

Ø      Move prison beds occupied by mentally ill and drug addicted into secure
community based treatment programs.

Ø      Retrain probation, parole, and correctional officers as crisis intervention team
responders.

Ø      Control and regulate marijuana to reduce access, court dockets and collect
revenue

Best practices and options:

All of the proposed considerations are reforms currently being discussed in
community meetings and state agencies.  Connecticut has spent the last 20 years
building the infrastructure and public will for reducing prison populations and
addressing unintended consequences of drug war policies.

Community Court

 

Ø      Opened on November 10, 1998

Ø      Is a collaborative effort between the Judicial Branch and local authorities to
address the "quality of life" crimes

Ø      Utilizes a combination of court-supervised community service and social services

Ø      In 10 years has handled over 78,200 new cases, averaging over 650 new cases
per month.

Ø      Over 90% of Community Court cases are disposed of within 3 months.

Ø      Its Social Services Team has made over 20,500 human service referrals.

Ø      Community Court defendants have performed over 285,000 hours of
community service

Access to Recovery (ATR) (ATR II year summary report)



Ø      Served more than two times the total number of individuals expected.

Ø      80% of recipients were male. 20% were female.

Ø      22% of recipients classified themselves as Hispanic/Latino.

Ø      45% of recipients indicated that they were Black/African American and

Ø      30% indicated that they were White.

Ø      Abstinence increased by 15%

Ø      99% of recipients remained arrest free

Ø      Stable housing increased more than 100%.

Ø      Risky behavior decreased by 12%

Ø      Employment increased by 93%

Ø      99% of recipients remained socially connected

Drug decriminalization (Cato report on Portugal)



Ø      In 2001, Portugal abolished all criminal penalties for personal drug possession.

Ø      Since decriminalization Portugal has outperformed the vast majority of other
states that continue to adhere to a criminalization regime.

Ø      Drug users were to be targeted with therapy rather than prison sentences

Ø      Since 2001drug usage in many categories has actually decreased when
measured in absolute terms, whereas usage in other categories has increased only
slightly or mildly.

Ø      None of the parade of horrors that decrim opponents predicted has come to
pass.

Ø      Usage has declined in many key categories

Ø      Drug-related social ills have been far more contained

Heroin maintenance and methadone programs

Ø      Dispenses heroin in a controlled secure facilities under medical supervision

Ø      Reduces criminal activity (selling drugs or stealing) as a result of heroin
addiction

Ø      Provides clean needles reducing the intravenous transfer of HIV/AIDS &
hepatitis C

Ø      Provides public health services for the addicted

Ø      The risk of overdoses will become minimal

Ø      Medical professionals can aid in detox while providing other social services

Ø      Treatment is less expensive here than in prison or jail

Ø      Can also provide services and education to families of addicted people

The Restorative Justice campaign members understand that this is a significant shift
in several state agency and municipal policies.  So the recommendations include:

1. Continue the Justice Reinvestment strategies-

Ø      The Justice Reinvestment strategy surgically reforms the probation and parole
systems, sentencing practices, and access to treatment services and was passed by
the legislature in 2003.  (“Almost $13 million of the nearly $30 million saved was
reinvested in community-based pilot projects. Probation violations dropped from 400
in July 2003 to 200 in September 2005. The decrease in the prison population over a
two-year period was steeper than that seen in almost any other state while the crime
rate continued to drop.”) Council of state governments.

2. Move nonviolent drug addicted prison beds to community-based facilities for
treatment, expand the community court and abolish mandatory minimums for
nonviolent drug offenses.

Ø      Currently a significant number of prison beds are being used to house
nonviolent drug addicted people.  These beds have drug addiction mental health
money for services attached to them. These beds are cheaper if they are placed in
facilities in communities they would become more available to residents.  Because the
criminal justice system takes a punitive approach to addiction and crimes committed
because of addiction an expansion of the community court model, abolishing
nonviolent drug mandatory minimums and the decriminalization of personal drug
possession and use would reduce court costs and enable people to access treatment
without being incarcerated.

3. Bring marijuana into the law, control and regulate.

Ø      Though Connecticut does not incarcerate people for first time marijuana
possession we do arrest and use existing laws to threaten sanctions.  We could bring
marijuana under the law to tax and regulate marijuana.  Under the current system
the state of Connecticut promotes the illegal marijuana trade due to prohibition.  We
can tax and regulate like alcohol and the lottery thus eliminating corner sells,
protecting medicinal marijuana patients, and reducing criminal court dockets.  This
will not only produce state revenue and savings, but control access to youth.

4. Expand Access to Recovery to be the state model for DHMAS.

Ø      This expansion would greatly increase resources for the community court model
and continue to support proven community based treatment strategies.  This strategy
would make adequate services available to people in the community whom are
currently incarcerated and would be released through Justice reinvestment
strategies.  By moving beds out of corrections this initiative could be self sustained
with current resources at a fraction of the cost to do it through corrections.

5. Improve public safety through expanded public health.

Ø      Heroin maintenance programs promote risk and harm reduction by providing
control doses in secure clinically staffed facilities.  Petty crimes associated with drug
addicted related crimes (shoplifting, prostitution, car break in’s, etc) can be
addressed through the expanded community court proposal.  New HIV/AIDS,
hepatitis C, infections, etc can be treated and ultimately reduced.  In short heroin
addicts are better served under the care of a medical professional not a correctional
officer and it’s less expensive.   Also the development of crisis intervention teams
would:

o       Enable police departments to adequately respond to mental health situations

o       Communities can develop public health strategies with local law enforcement

o       Enable the reallocation of law enforcement resources to unsolved violent crimes

o       Make help for families and communities available through Access to Recovery

o       Maintain employment for probation, parole, correctional and police officers
through retraining

In summary:

The Restorative Justice campaign combined with Justice Reinvestment would allow
Connecticut to:

1.  Reduce prison population and recidivism

2.  Generate revenue for the state while reallocating savings through reform

3. Increase treatment availability without entering the criminal justice system

4.  Expand programs/strategies the legislature and state agencies already agree to

5.  Address public health issues through appropriate state agencies

The Restorative Justice Coalition meets once a month at Saint Joseph’s College and is
open to the public.  If you have additional questions and/or would like to attend the
next meeting contact:

Lorenzo Jones

Executive Director

A Better Way Foundation

PO Box 942

Hartford, CT 06101

860-2709586 (Hartford area)

203-435-6979 (New Haven area)



www.abwf-ct.org

Bob Painter
12 Babcock Street
Hartford, Connecticut 06106
(860) 463-1496


Clifford “Cliff” W. Thornton, Jr.

Executive Director/Founder

Efficacy

P.O. Box 1234

Hartford, CT 06143

860 657-8438