Emery County Sheriff Greg Funk is concerned about a new law which went into effect on Oct. 1. House Bill 238 is called the Justice Reinvestment Initiative.
Sheriff Funk said the objective of the new law is to stop recidivism. The recidivism rate is somewhere between 60-80 percent. Some people will reoffend before they are off parole. “It’s a revolving door. The law originally came from a group the governor put together to study the prison system in Utah. The PEW study related the prison system is overpopulated. There are high needs and low risk people in the system. The premise is these people need treatment instead of incarceration. According to the study, we are creating more criminals by risking low risk inmates and putting them in with hardened criminals. As a result of this study they came up with a new law that decriminalizes schedule two drugs such as cocaine, meth and heroin and reduces the penalty for possession of these drugs to a misdemeanor. The law also took away the majority of the enhancements. For instance at a school playground, if the children weren’t present, then dirty needles could be left there after school hours and it wouldn’t qualify as an enhancement. School grounds could be contaminated.
“According to the law we are supposed to be doing assessments on everyone that is booked into jail. We have entered into a memorandum of understanding with Washington County for the county jail screening process. Everyone booked into jail must have a risk assessment done by a non-law enforcement individual.
“Washington County is hiring five full time individuals to do the assessments. They will assess those booked into Emery County via the internet. Someone must be available 24/7 for these assessments. There is no cost to the county right now for these assessments.
“The state didn’t properly fund for 24/7 365 days a year for these assessments. They will have to modify the bill to find a way to do that.
“The assessments will dictate whether or not a person goes to jail, house arrest or into treatment or back out on the streets. Judges and attorneys will make the decision based upon these evaluations.
“We haven’t used house arrest very much here. Sometimes for an inmate that has medical conditions which require a lot of care. But, it’s not common.
“I feel local law enforcement hasn’t been provided with the means or the training to put this law into effect. We have 29 county sheriff’s who all have their own ideas on how the law should be implemented. There are some organizations that are excited about the law. The mental health care providers feel like if they can give therapy, it will help people. But, I think that system is broken.
“I am extremely concerned with the fact that everyone who is booked into jail must go through an evaluation that will determine where they end up. This is for any charge, not just for drugs. Every booking will go through this.
“The evaluation will only be as good as the information gathered, if this information is factual. I have some concerns with the questions that will be asked. I see many problems with it.
“Overcrowding is an issue at the state prison and there will be 900 less beds at the new prison. Right now the state prison is down 400 prisoners. The judges started observing this new law in July. Attorney’s kept postponing cases until it hit the Oct. 1 implementation date.
“There are many costs to putting criminals back out on the streets and loosening up the drug laws. There are five other states with laws similar to this one and they have seen their overdose rates increase by 50 percent. The social costs are tremendous.
“I feel this happens because the threat of prison is no longer there. You’ve opened the door with this law and it’s kind of like a defacto legalization. Like in Colorado, it’s socially accepted and they are getting users there in elementary and junior high schools, younger and younger kids starting on drugs. It’s acceptable and there’s no stigma.
“Studies have proven that long term drug users are chemically imbalanced. Most of the people in the court system for drugs are addicted. We need to start somewhere before they get to this stage in their lives.
“I think the only time therapy will work is when the addict has hit rock bottom. This will often only occur after long-term incarceration. When someone hits rock bottom they must decide for themselves, they want help and want to change. Until they get to this point and decide for themselves that’s not the kind of life they want then therapy is of little use. The majority will have to lose everything.
“We have had a case study in our county where someone spent six months in jail and then was on probation for three years and recently got off probation. Within a couple of weeks, without this constant supervision, he has reoffended. This often happens when people are addicted and don’t decide for themselves they need to get clean.
“Another issue I have with this law is the funding. Right now the state is financially liable for felony offenses. The counties bear the burden with misdemeanors. Our county receives about $70,000 per year for housing of felons. This could be one of the reasons the state has chosen to go this way. We could lose about $50,000 because of this law and still be responsible for their care if they end up in county jail. Larger counties like Utah County could stand to lose over a million dollars.
“If a criminal is high risk, we would still have to house them and not be reimbursed for any of their care or these people will be sent back out into the community.
“I really believe that crimes will go up and drug use will go up. There will be a lot of public frustration because they aren’t going to understand the law and they won’t understand that the officers hands are tied. I feel the people of Emery County are not in favor of the new law because this will cause a disconnect between the officer and the public.
“I encourage everyone to contact the governor and their legislators and let them know your concerns. There may be short term benefits, but long term consequences from this law.
“They are trying to save money from incarceration and put it into the communities for treatment and these treatments are only marginally successful. These mental health organizations will receive more money, but law enforcement will receive less and have to do more at the jails and the county level.
“This law is not the panacea that law makers believe it to be. I am bound to do this and I will try to remain objective and do my best to enact this law as it’s given. I have my doubts, but I would like to see this work. It would be great if we had a silver bullet to take care of addiction, but I don’t think this is it. It’s going to push people back into the community, that may not be ready.
“Inmates need to be taught. If they are in jail, there needs to be programs for them to get the help they need. To get their high school diplomas to get an education and get out of the criminal justice system, once and for all. If extra money is available, I would like to see it go to help these people better themselves. They need to know there is a way out of the system.
“Some of the larger counties are excited with this new law. They think it will help with the overcrowding, but the problems we have in rural Utah are different. We need to look at the big picture. I think as a county we will need to implement a pre-trial service and a county probation system to see over the people with the misdemeanors. The state will give a grant and each county must submit a proposal to receive this grant. It must be approved by the county commission and I will have our proposal ready for the next commission meeting on Dec. 15,” said Sheriff Funk.
Emery County Deputy County Attorney Brent Langston said he doubts if any of the legislators read the entire bill creating the Justice Reinvestment Initiative. The bill was passed without input from prosecutors and sheriff’s offices around the state. The entire bill was based on fallacies. Number one is that the prisons are overcrowded with first time drug offenders. “Nobody goes to prison for a first time drug offense. Prisons are not full of first time single possession drug offenders, that’s just not the case. I defy anyone to show statistics to the contrary. It’s a fallacy that all they need is treatment. Drug offenders can find help now, today with the system that’s in place. Someone could walk into Four Corners Behavioral Health and say they have a drug problem and they wouldn’t be turned away. They offer services on a sliding scale for all incomes. Many of these offenders don’t want help and don’t want to change. It’s not like treatment is unavailable now. Reducing drug charges to a misdemeanor and providing treatment basically removes accountability from the defendant and removes penalties. What if they screw-up, then what?
“We have family drug court. The drug users are asked to stop using drugs, or lose their kids. The vast majority will choose drugs over their kids.
“When penalties hang over someone’s head, that’s the time they go through the tough time to make the changes. They have taken drug possession from a third degree felony to a class A misdemeanor and taken away drug free zones. What effect will this have on the people in felony drug court? I feel like drug court is beneficial, it gives the tools to be successful.
“If it made a safer environment for everyone, I would love that, but it won’t we will have a worse drug problem. Utah already has one of the highest prescription drug use problems.
“When they first introduced drug court, the premise was that we could fix them. The original drug court concept was for the first time offenders, that’s how it was sold. Now they want the heavy users in drug court, it’s flip flopped. Why the flip flop? Everything I’m saying is politically incorrect, but I have been doing this for 30 years. I really have my doubts about this law. The court system will have to follow it, follow these lighter sanctions. It’s really gone the opposite way. There will be much less order to show causes because they won’t bring back in the drug users and ask them why they are back using drugs.
“Maybe they will show much less recidivism because they won’t be bringing them back into court. In the 1980s the sentencing was light and now it’s swinging back that way again. I’m not sure how much time it will take to swing back. The federal system is filled up with drug offenders, but that’s not the case with the state prison system. They are trying to put a state fix on a federal problem. The federal system needs to be addressed.
“I predict we will see an increase in drug related problems. More people using and more people with problems, more crimes that have root in drug addiction,” said Attorney Langston.
Karen Dolan is the manager of the Four Corners Behavioral Health for Carbon, Emery and Grand counties. Dolan stated this organization will be responsible for the majority of the treatment. Dolan said the bill was originally designed for the Medicaid expansion program to channel people into this program. Single working class adults generally didn’t qualify so they could go into treatment. That’s still being worked on and they are hoping that will pass in the future.
For now some start-up funding has become available for Four Corners to begin to develop programs. Instead of sending people to jail, they would be sent to treatment. “We are hoping to do evidence based treatment and effective treatment for these people. We are training our staff on evidence based treatments. We are meeting with our partners, the sheriff’s, adult probation and parole to develop a system for those with high addiction problems. Those who are addicted to drugs will be integrated into treatment. Recovery does work, we need to catch these people earlier in their disease process. A small amount of money has been allocated for these three counties. We have hired one new position who will work to pull people into treatment. Treatment plus supervision. If the judge sends someone to treatment, there will be some accountability.”
Dolan said she is hopeful the legislature will fund this program with the two pronged approach with supervision and treatment. “We hope to help people in the beginning stages of drug addiction. This could really be a positive approach if it were treated like the disease it is. The war on drugs has robbed people of their lives and hobbled their lives and their ability to care for their families. We could reach some of these people. Prison makes it worse.
“It can be positive if we accept that this is a disease. If the state saves money by not incarcerating these people, then some of that savings can be used to help supervise and treat and also for prevention programs so kids don’t get involved in drugs. If we can get to them earlier. Drug addiction is a preventable disease. If you never try it you can’t get addicted, some people just have that gene. We need to get the message out that it is preventable,” said Dolan.
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