{"id":2772,"date":"2019-04-24T23:35:04","date_gmt":"2019-04-24T23:35:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/recovery.stigmaunmasked.com\/?p=2772"},"modified":"2019-04-24T23:35:04","modified_gmt":"2019-04-24T23:35:04","slug":"a-new-approach","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/digitalresearch.bsu.edu\/stigmaunmasked.recovery\/forgivness\/a-new-approach\/","title":{"rendered":"A New Approach"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

By Lauren DeLorenzo<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n


After changing its approach to drug arrests in 2017, the Delaware County Prosecutor\u2019s office said it has more than twice as many convictions of high level drug dealers.
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\u201cWe\u2019ve flipped the numbers,\u201d said Zach Craig, Delaware County\u2019s chief deputy prosecutor. \u201cWhen you have a problem this big, you kind of get shell shocked. If we really want to have an effect, what do we do? And then there\u2019s that old saying\u2026 how do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time. So I think when we finally came around to that idea we started making incremental steps towards real change.\u201d
<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Around 70 percent of convictions are high level offenders, while there are fewer convictions among those who are simply addicted to drugs. The prosecutor\u2019s office has rewired their approach from a zero-tolerance stance to one focused on recovery.  
<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201c[Law enforcement] don\u2019t want to put people in jail. They want to help people.\u201d
<\/p>– Zach Craig<\/strong>
Delaware County chief deputy prosecutor<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

One way the office is doing this is by making a distinction between drug dealers and addicts. Delaware County prosecutor Eric Hoffman said that police investigations and intelligence from the FBI gives prosecutors a good idea of which category an arrestee falls under.
<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s always been my philosophy, as long as I\u2019ve been a prosecutor, that if we as a society are going to spend time, effort, energy and money on rehabilitation for those who are addicts, the flip side of that coin is we must spend the time, effort, energy and money on prosecuting and incarcerating the drug dealers to keep it off the street,\u201d said Hoffman.  \u201cI think those two things go hand in hand. You have to have both.\u201d
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Craig explained this approach not only benefits addicts, but also saves the community resources.
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\u201cI\u2019ve got somewhere like 150 drug dealing cases on my calendar,\u201d said Craig, who described the constant influx of low level offenders as \u201cinfuriating.\u201d
<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIf we could help [addicts] solve that problem so they don\u2019t get to these other [high offending] levels, that\u2019s great. It saves time exponentially, saves resources exponentially.\u201d
<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One initiative to save resources is \u201cSurrender to Freedom,\u201d an event which began in 2018 to help resolve arrest warrants and connect addicts to recovery programs. Individuals with warrants who come to this event are eligible to have warrants vacated and may receive a new court date.
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The program helps avoid the costs of housing individuals in a jail or shipping them to an outside county jail because of overcrowding. It also saves taxpayers the cost of paying law enforcement to retrieve and arrest these individuals, said Craig.
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The creation of the Community Drug Task Force in 2016 brought together Muncie leaders to pursue an approach based on recovery.  The CDTF has involved major employers, the mayor, the president of IU Ball Memorial Hospital, the president of Ball State University, the president and chief executive officer of Meridian Health Services and vice presidents of local banks.
<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIf you get those individuals in one room, you can make change happen,\u201d Craig said.  \u201cIt\u2019s really focusing on all the tools that we have and the people that come together, and funnelling those to the area that can have the most effect.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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