Ep. 4 Court Innovations

In this episode, Judge Duane Slone, Judge Tim Brock and Mr. Jeff Smith, the Project Director for the eighth judicial district of New York discuss the court’s response to the opioid addiction epidemic beyond implementing traditional drug courts. 

Produced by Nick Morgan

Transcript

00;00;01;21 - 00;00;12;26
Host
Welcome to Tennessee Court Talk. I am your host, Barbara Peck. This episode is intended for all audiences and is a collaboration with the Tennessee Judicial Opioid Initiative.

00;00;12;28 - 00;00;37;02
Host
Today, we are discussing the courts response to the addiction epidemic, and all three of our guests have gone well beyond the traditional management of cases stemming out of addiction issues and beyond even implementing traditional drug courts to create something new, something innovative. Our first guest is Judge Duane Sloan from Tennessee's fourth Judicial District. He created the recovery oriented compliance strategy in his courtroom.

00;00;37;04 - 00;01;01;27
Host
Our second guest is Mr. Jeff Smith. He is a project director for the eighth Judicial District in New York, which includes the city of Buffalo and eight counties. They created the first opioid intervention court in the country. Our third guest is Judge Tim Brock. He's a juvenile and General Sessions judge in Coffey County, Tennessee, and he runs the state's only family drug court and is one of the state's first safe baby court judges.

00;01;01;29 - 00;01;03;12
Host
Welcome to everyone.

00;01;03;15 - 00;01;05;09
Judge Brock
Thank you for being you. It's good to be here.

00;01;05;12 - 00;01;14;02
Host
So, Judge Sloan, let's start with you. Can you explain briefly what is the recovery oriented compliance strategy?

00;01;14;04 - 00;01;50;21
Judge Sloan
So the recovery oriented compliance strategy uses the three essential components of the most successful recovery oriented compliance strategies that we have in the nation and in fact, the world. One is an accurate assessment of a behavioral health disorder and the referral to the appropriate level of treatment for the appropriate amount of time. Number two frequent accountability, for example, through drug screening, appearances in front of the supervising probation officer or community corrections officer, face to face contact with treatment providers, and more frequent court appearances.

00;01;50;24 - 00;01;52;07
Judge Sloan
And three leverage.

00;01;52;10 - 00;01;57;04
Host
Mr. Smith, tell us about the Buffalo opioid intervention Court.

00;01;57;06 - 00;02;19;25
Jeff Smith
Well, the Buffalo Opioid Intervention Court is a court that takes a very similar model to what Judge Sloan was describing. But what we do is try to get the defendant earlier in the court process. So what we are doing is seeing individuals directly after the criminal arraignment, once that criminal arraignment has happened, ideally within the next 24 hours.

00;02;20;02 - 00;02;51;29
Jeff Smith
Individuals are in treatment. And while that treatment is going on, the criminal process is delayed. So we actually interrupt the process of the criminal prosecution for approximately 90 to 120 days. Once the individual is stabilized, has all the medication, has all the medical treatment they need. We can then go back to the criminal process and determine if they're going to go on to what would be considered a traditional problem solving court, or if the case is simply going to be dismissed, or if the case needs to go to a higher court to be prosecuted.

00;02;52;02 - 00;02;58;08
Jeff Smith
But ideally, we have an individual that is now feeling well and can also assist in their own defense.

00;02;58;10 - 00;03;02;28
Host
Excellent. And judge Brock, tell us about the family drug court.

00;03;03;00 - 00;03;39;06
Judge Brock
A family drug court is a recovery court. And, it's modeled. There's a there's a national model, with, components just like other recovery courts. The digestive, that being, treatment, accountability and using the leverage of the court. And it's in it's, used in cases, child welfare cases. But in Tennessee, we call them defendants in neglect cases where, children are either at risk of being removed from the parent's care or have been removed entering state casting or living with another relative or person.

00;03;39;09 - 00;03;52;09
Judge Brock
It's designed to provide treatment opportunities for the parents, hopefully reunite the parent and child or children, and if not, provide a permanent safe home, for the child or children.

00;03;52;12 - 00;04;08;18
Host
So all of you kind of take took these are created these innovative approaches on your own. No one legislated you to do it or forced you to do it. So what was your inspiration? Judge Brock, for deciding to implement a family drug court strategy?

00;04;08;20 - 00;04;38;04
Judge Brock
Well, I've been a recovery court judge since 2005, so I've seen firsthand, how successful that model is and how it can transform and and change lives, of course, in Tennessee and particularly where I live in Tennessee and Middle Eastern part of Middle Tennessee, we've been hit particularly hard, with the opioid epidemic. And for the last ten years, and now not just opioids, but, stimulants as well.

00;04;38;07 - 00;04;58;15
Judge Brock
And a disproportionate number of, of children were being removed from parents and placed in state casting or with other persons or relatives due to the parents addiction. And so it just made sense to explore the possibility of, of, of establishing a family, recovery court. And it's been done in other, other states and, no, it had been successful.

00;04;58;15 - 00;05;08;22
Judge Brock
So we explored the possibility and with the help of the Department of Mental Health, applied for a SAMHSa grant and received the grant. And we've been up and running now for a couple of years.

00;05;08;27 - 00;05;18;02
Host
Judge Slone, you're also a drug or traditional drug court judge. But what inspired you, what was happening in your courtroom that that led you to create rocks?

00;05;18;04 - 00;05;47;07
Judge Sloan
What, actually inspired me to do it was, my own bias against, medication assisted treatment, particularly, buprenorphine and methadone. My own experience was that I didn't see any good health outcomes, with, people using those, substances. Heard of diversion issues? In 2011, when, our son Joseph came into our home at six months old with neonatal lapse syndrome.

00;05;47;09 - 00;06;08;23
Judge Sloan
I committed myself to learn as much as I could about opioid use disorder and how to treat it. However, fast forwarding a couple of years, and with my bias against the medications, I would ask that a woman that was pregnant with that was prescribed buprenorphine commonly because that was the standard of care to come and have a conversation with me in court.

00;06;08;25 - 00;06;40;04
Judge Sloan
And what I found was that none of those women have any, been given a clinical assessment to determine what behavioral health treatment or services that she needed. So we, had access to criminal justice liaison, and we began immediately using the criminal justice liaisons to do a preliminary, clinical assessment and, provide for a, behavioral health treatment plan that would include mental health services, if, indicated.

00;06;40;06 - 00;07;07;29
Judge Sloan
And that would then become a condition of her supervision. In addition to that, she would also see her probation officer more frequently and be drug screened frequently to detect if she was, using substances not for the purpose of necessarily incarcerating her, but to adjust her treatment if necessary, and then coming to see me more often to make sure that she was in compliance with her behavioral health treatment plan.

00;07;08;02 - 00;07;43;17
Judge Sloan
And if there was a problem, in between her court appearances, which were typically in the beginning, about once per month, then the probation officer would let me know immediately if there was a problem so we could make any adjustments that we needed. After only 2 or 3 months, and having what we perceive to be really good success, we expanded our reach to, men and women and the entire probation population and what we found was that we were able to see and serve a much greater population than, your typical drug recovery courts are.

00;07;43;19 - 00;07;57;22
Judge Sloan
And I also overcame my own bias against medication to assist the treatment of opioid use disorder, because I found that what the medication did was actually stabilize the mother or the individual and level the playing field.

00;07;57;24 - 00;08;01;21
Host
Mr. Smith, what was the inspiration behind the Opioid Intervention Court in Buffalo?

00;08;01;25 - 00;08;41;00
Jeff Smith
The inspiration came from, the existing, drug treatment court that had been operational since 1996, in the city of Buffalo. What was happening from the years of about 2017, and where that individuals that were going through the criminal process were, not making it to that what would be considered a post plea or a post sentence treatment court individuals, ideally, when you go into drug court, go through the criminal process and then once at the end of the criminal process, some form of sentence guideline would place them in one of our problem solving courts.

00;08;41;02 - 00;09;01;08
Jeff Smith
The difficulty was the nature of the substance, the substance that being heroin or heroin laced with fentanyl or fentanyl. Straight away, whatever it may be, is so lethal. Just one dose was taking away our individuals. So the best way of describing what's the inspiration? We're going to save lives and to save the life. We're going to have to intervene.

00;09;01;08 - 00;09;29;00
Jeff Smith
We're going to have to hit them at a point where they are first entering the criminal justice process, where they're both in crisis and not only in crisis, where we can also get to them before, unfortunately, that one dose takes their life. After we opened May 1st, 2017, as we sit here today in 2019, we currently in Erie County, where Buffalo sits, have a little over 27% decrease now in overdose deaths.

00;09;29;03 - 00;09;38;21
Jeff Smith
It is in portion to getting this part going. So the inspiration has turned to perspiration, and the perspiration now is turning into something that we're hopefully going to make it work.

00;09;38;23 - 00;09;50;07
Host
So in your court, you're actually stopping the criminal justice process while this diversion happens. How was that initially received by prosecutors and others in the in the system?

00;09;50;09 - 00;10;20;08
Jeff Smith
Well, the best way of describing it is everyone was wanting a solution because we were averaging somewhere in the neighborhood of about, and I know it's it sounds silly, but we're averaging about a .88 8/100 of an individual passing away every day of the calendar year of 2016. We had 368 deaths in the city of Buffalo, during 2016.

00;10;20;10 - 00;10;40;20
Jeff Smith
That number was unacceptable. So by talking with our elected officials, which would have been our district attorneys, such as what you suggested, the prosecutor talking with appointed positions such as our public defender's office and speaking with members of the judiciary, everyone was in agreement. We needed to do something different. And that pretty much goes along with our philosophy.

00;10;40;20 - 00;10;56;29
Jeff Smith
Each time when we open a problem solving court, we can continue to do it the same way. If we want, but if we continue to do it the same way, which is very good at processing people through the criminal justice system, we weren't going to get the change we wanted. So to get the change we needed to do something differently.

00;10;56;29 - 00;11;17;22
Jeff Smith
So everyone came on board saying, yes, we will help, but we're also going to be watching you, Jeff Smith, and making sure that you're not doing something that we don't want to help with any longer. And each time, each week, each month, each half year, as it got better and better, individuals began to offer more as fighters what they would like to do and how they would like to be involved.

00;11;17;25 - 00;11;43;22
Jeff Smith
So initially, the district Attorney's office said there would only be a certain level of charge that would be allowed to be in. Now, as we sit here today during this podcast, every charge is eligible to be screened. And then charges of nonviolence period are all eligible to come into the program immediately. And those that may have been charged by a violent charge under statute are reviewed by the district attorney.

00;11;43;22 - 00;12;08;10
Jeff Smith
And the reason they're reviewed is, in New York State, a burglary second is considered a violent felony, but a burglary. Second, is someone breaking into an abandoned warehouse and taking out copper pipe so that they can sell them for drugs? If that's the case, and it wasn't a burglary where someone broke into someone's home or where there was someone around and they were they were accosted or there was some other offense that went with it and there were no weapons involved.

00;12;08;13 - 00;12;33;03
Jeff Smith
The district attorney will allow the case to come in and with the public defender's office say the case was, well, we'll consider a bad arrest, a bad warrant, an individual that maybe had been falsely arrested. Instead of asking for that dismissal right around arraignment time, the public defender's office is determined. Let their client get the help. And then once we bring it back to court, they'll ask for the immediate dismissal, and that person can move on.

00;12;33;05 - 00;12;40;10
Jeff Smith
They aren't harming their client by allowing him to be in this type of process. So everyone has come to believe that this is a good plan.

00;12;40;12 - 00;12;51;22
Host
And Judge Slone, tell me about the difference between a defendant who's attending traditional drug court in your district versus a defendant who's going to go through the rocks program.

00;12;51;24 - 00;13;24;13
Judge Sloan
So one key difference is that to enter a traditional drug recovery court program, the individual makes an application, to, be admitted into the recovery court program, that there is a very in-depth clinical assessment that is done to determine if, they are a high risk of recidivism and they have high behavioral health needs. And then all the the team members discuss whether to even allow that person to be admitted into drug recovery court.

00;13;24;16 - 00;13;52;14
Judge Sloan
And the length of time that takes is, for us, at least is, is too long, approximately 60 days, sometimes longer. And, people are excluded. If they have a violent crime conviction, then that violent crime conviction could mean even a simple assault. So that's one key difference. Another key difference is that, the, there is no team in the respect that there's a drug recovery court team for ten rocks to work.

00;13;52;19 - 00;14;22;01
Judge Sloan
It is. We have a criminal justice liaison that acts as the, trusted, provider or organization that does that initial assessment and referral to treatment. And then we have probation supervising the individual's compliance with the behavioral health treatment plan. And then you need a judge that, then receives direct communication from the probation officer. If there's a problem and makes the necessary adjustments, issues a warrant.

00;14;22;01 - 00;14;51;05
Judge Sloan
If there's a real problem to get the person back into custody to, then hopefully reengage them with the new treatment plan. It's a much simpler process, and it's, by and large that we do some pre, disposition work with, using this model. But it's post disposition. So there's there's no active, involvement necessary from the district attorney general or the public defender.

00;14;51;08 - 00;15;12;20
Judge Sloan
If, there's a, if the person is going to be subjected to being incarcerated, then typically we impose a, ratio of violation, probation warrant. The process is then, addressed to because the in our appointed counsel. But, so it's just a it works. It's a lot faster. We reach a lot larger population.

00;15;12;23 - 00;15;38;20
Judge Sloan
Therefore, we serve more and more people that are really in this gap population in Tennessee, there's only 2000 people in a, treatment court, and that includes drug recovery courts, mental health courts. So they be courts, all the, treatment courts, that includes misdemeanors and felonies. There are 78,000 people on felony supervised probation in Tennessee, as we heard today.

00;15;38;22 - 00;16;01;11
Judge Sloan
I think at least 60% of that 78,000 population has a substance use disorder, and 85% of those people have a co-occurring mental health disorder. So there's an incredibly large gap population because of the the demands on the human, both human and volunteer. Time and energy is not what it is. And drug recovery court that we can serve again a lot more people.

00;16;01;13 - 00;16;09;21
Host
And Judge Brock what what was happening to the families or before you started your family drug court? What was happening to those families? Where were they in the system?

00;16;09;24 - 00;16;36;13
Judge Brock
Where the families were, you know, they were in the traditional child welfare system where the Department of Children Services would file a petition requesting either the children be removed from the home or they'd be placed with another person or family member and they would receive, particularly those those parents whose children were in state custody. The state has an obligation to provide provide reasonable efforts, to reunite the family and reasonable efforts.

00;16;36;13 - 00;17;14;21
Judge Brock
Obviously, if there's addiction issues, you just provide some semblance of treatment. But that treatment, in my experience, was over the years was that there was an inherent conflict because of just the nature of the cases, where there was a tension between, what's necessary for treatment, which we know is a long term endeavor. It's not something that's accomplished in six months or eight months, went on months and there was a tension between that and, some federal requirements to achieve permanency, or even file, parental rights termination cases within certain prescribed periods of time.

00;17;14;29 - 00;17;41;29
Judge Brock
So there was a natural tension, there was a built in tension. My experience was that the parents really did not get, a full opportunity at treatment because of those tensions. And so when one reason for doing the family treatment court and a safe baby court is to, is to, is to provide, the full panoply of treatment and the necessary services to hopefully reunite the child with the parent.

00;17;42;00 - 00;18;05;14
Judge Brock
Now, there's still those requirements, and there's still that tension. But but part of the process and creating your team and working with Children's services and the Department of Health and the attorneys, cost, and all the persons in the organizations that come to the table is for people to recognize that tension and, and kind of work through it, knowing it's still there, knowing those time limits are still there.

00;18;05;17 - 00;18;29;25
Judge Brock
But, with the commitment and the understanding that, you know, the best place for a child to be with their parents, if you can do that and have a safe home for the child. So with all the with all that kind of that mix, we put an emphasis on treatment reunification, but at the same time balancing the safety of the child, which sometimes a difficult thing to do.

00;18;29;25 - 00;18;54;15
Judge Brock
And sometimes at some point in the case you have to make the call that, well, it's time to, to move on. And, and, and reunification may not be the ultimate end here. You know, it was just it was just really to give an opportunity to reunite, the children with their parents, who have had an opportunity at, at, at full, full treatment.

00;18;54;17 - 00;19;09;18
Host
So we've heard a little bit about who's on your team, but Mr. Smith, who how are you doing this? Within 24 hours, you're getting people into treatment. So who's on the team? Besides, there's a judge. And who else is on the team for the opioid intervention court.

00;19;09;20 - 00;19;35;25
Jeff Smith
Okay. The the judge is the most important piece. There is no doubt. You have to have a judge that has, a temperament and a personality that can deal with issues and on the fly, if you will, individuals that, quite honestly, when they're coming into this particular part are either under the influence, dramatically meaning they were arrested just about when they were using, or they're going through detoxification because they've been waiting overnight to come and be arraigned.

00;19;35;28 - 00;19;58;13
Jeff Smith
So you're dealing with people who are truly in medical crisis. Once we have that person on the team that can deal with issues such as that, we have a coordinator that is in the court that makes sure that all of the systems are put in place before we're releasing this individual to the community. One of the things I want to make note of, we're now treating individuals in an outpatient setting.

00;19;58;15 - 00;20;19;09
Jeff Smith
Roughly 98% of the population is going to an outpatient appointment. We are not sending them to a hospital. We are not sending them to a and overnight. We are not sending them to a rehabilitation center. We are sending them to an outpatient appointment where they're going to sit down with a physician on that day and receive medication on that day and go back home.

00;20;19;11 - 00;20;41;03
Jeff Smith
If we have individuals that are homeless, then we're making sure that the housing is set up for them as well. Who is on the team are those individuals that would be providing the treatment? So we have multiple levels of care as far as the medically assisted treatment. We have a representative from a methadone clinic, a representative who would be handling the triage of, placing people on buprenorphine.

00;20;41;06 - 00;21;01;07
Jeff Smith
And then we also have, medical personnel that can handle the issues surrounding vivitrol. But we also give the defendant an opportunity if they would like to do an abstinence based program, meaning a program with no medically assisted treatment. And then we would go the traditional avenue, which would be taking them to a detoxification center that would move them on to a residential center from there.

00;21;01;09 - 00;21;26;19
Jeff Smith
The difficulty is, people are in crisis. They'd rather not go to some form, excuse me, some form of detoxification center. They would much rather get immediate assistance so that the panel stop. No one to this day. And I would question anyone that would would be able to provide me a statistic. No one really has a life threatening issue surrounding detoxification.

00;21;26;22 - 00;21;44;12
Jeff Smith
They just would like to die. It hurts so bad. What we do is try to prevent them from passing away from the overdose, which tends to be the way that we have individuals passing away due to drug use and in this case, opioid use disorder. But what we do is make sure the medication is in place before we let them go.

00;21;44;14 - 00;22;11;04
Jeff Smith
And the other key is the warm handoff. We make sure that the individual, when they're leaving the courthouse is being accompanied by an agency that, will get them right to the doctor's office, sit with them through the appointment and make sure they get back home with their prescription filled. And the way of doing that is utilizing, either our faith based community or using community agencies that are private, not for profits that have opened due to the loss of others.

00;22;11;04 - 00;22;32;29
Jeff Smith
We have a wonderful organization that was founded due to the founder, losing their son. Over opioid use disorder, and they have now brought in other parents and other siblings and others that have lost family members to join in the fight. And what they do now is make sure that these individuals have transportation to and from court to and from treatment.

00;22;33;02 - 00;22;52;18
Jeff Smith
And it is the best analogy I have is the children's story Stone soup. We started with a big black pot in Iraq, and everybody seems to be bringing something to the pot right now, and we have now opened two other courts in the eighth Judicial District, one in the city of Niagara Falls and one in a rural community in the city of Dunkirk.

00;22;52;21 - 00;22;56;26
Jeff Smith
And both are operating similar to that of the city of Buffalo.

00;22;56;28 - 00;23;10;11
Host
Judge Sloan, one of the things that's unique about your program is you've been able to take the concept of rocks and apply it to non-criminal cases. Tell us a little bit about what types of cases you've been able to apply the concept to.

00;23;10;13 - 00;23;39;13
Judge Sloan
Again, you have the three essential components that can be applied anywhere. One of our colleagues, Doctor Loyd, explained the success rates of physicians and airline pilots because they have the, accurate assessment or referral to the appropriate level treatment, appropriate amount of time. Number two, frequent accountability. Number three, a leverage meaning their license. Well, so as Judge Brock was just describing, the, parents desire to be reunified with their children.

00;23;39;15 - 00;24;08;16
Judge Sloan
So typically in a, divorce situation or post-divorce, custody, situation, you have one parent that has filed a petition to modify the parenting plan because of the, mom or dad's, substance use disorder. And, so historically, courts would, take that evidence and modify the parenting plan. Then it would take a long time for the parent to have a normalized parenting, relationship with their child if they ever.

00;24;08;18 - 00;24;35;20
Judge Sloan
So what we've done is take, if we have a trusted provider to get that assessment done, a behavioral health treatment plan is set forth. And then, the parent, will start out with, very restricted, perhaps supervised time with the child and, the same, way with regard to how drug recovery courts work. Right. We're going to as time goes, we're going to, give you more and more liberty and drug recovery courts.

00;24;35;20 - 00;24;56;03
Judge Sloan
So here we're in this situation. We're going to increase your time with the child. And, with the goal of, restoring you to your normalized parenting plan. And in most cases, that's shared parenting over 50, 50 time and at least in our district. And but the leverage, again, is the parents, desire to have that time with their child.

00;24;56;05 - 00;25;02;25
Judge Sloan
So we've had very successful outcomes, using the strategy and, in those situations.

00;25;02;28 - 00;25;28;16
Judge Brock
Judge Sloan, he described the scope of the problem when he was talking about the number of persons in, in, in custody for, either TLC, the Department of Corrections or jails. And we're talking tens of thousands, probably, what, 25 or 30,000 in TLC custody and maybe that many in jail custody in Tennessee. So we're talking about a lot of people.

00;25;28;18 - 00;26;01;19
Judge Brock
We're talking about a significant number of people that are affected, parents and children that are affected in child welfare and custody cases. You know, there at any one time in Tennessee, there between 8 and 9000 children in state custody, and it's been over 10,000, at times over the last few years. In addition to that, there probably is many or more children who are not living with parents, but not in state custody, but who've been given custody, whose custody has been given to a parent or a relative.

00;26;01;21 - 00;26;23;20
Judge Brock
And then on top of that, you have the custody cases that Judge Sloan's talking about. So we're talking about an enormous number of persons in our state that are affected. And so, you know, the scale, the scale was enormous. And that's why, you know, his efforts within rocks to scale up, the number of people that are affected.

00;26;23;23 - 00;26;38;09
Judge Brock
And hopefully we have the ability and the wherewithal to scale up our safe baby courts and our family treatment courts to, you know, to complement what they're doing to, to to reach more people because there are lots of folks out there.

00;26;38;12 - 00;26;45;07
Host
Judge Brock, how are you using community partnerships and relationships for both your family drug court and your safety court?

00;26;45;13 - 00;27;06;01
Judge Brock
Those important those relationships are vital. You cannot you really can't do one of these without those relationships. And they begin, with, the department mental health and the Department of Children Services. You have to have a good partnership and relationship because they bring so much to the table as far as resources, and case management and things like that.

00;27;06;03 - 00;27;27;06
Judge Brock
In addition to that, you need to partner with your your attorneys. You need to buy in because they're the ones that are helping make the referrals, and encouraging their clients to, you know, to be part of this program. And court appointed special advocates are an important part. They're kind of the eyes and ears for the children they advocate on behalf of the children.

00;27;27;06 - 00;28;02;00
Judge Brock
So they're very important in kind of independent voice. That's that's vital. And then you have just, almost it's limitless. The partners that you can employ, faith based partners, other organizations, you need, you know, you transportation services, you need housing, you need, something as simple as food and clothing. So the, you know, your imagination is the limit as far as your, the persons and the, the groups that you recruit to, to help you.

00;28;02;02 - 00;28;09;25
Judge Brock
And as you get further into this, the list keeps growing. You find out what the needs are, and you try to meet the need. Once you find it.

00;28;09;27 - 00;28;14;17
Host
And, Mr. Smith, what do you think has been the biggest lessons that you've learned?

00;28;14;19 - 00;28;37;19
Jeff Smith
The lessons we've learned are that, you can change on the fly. We can. We can do some things differently, even though we think we know what we're doing and have been doing it for a number of decades now with problem solving courts, as as the difficulty of the type of substance or the population that we're serving begins to change, we have to evolve as well.

00;28;37;19 - 00;29;01;27
Jeff Smith
So that was a very large lesson. The other lesson that we learned was that it can be replicated. And what we need is partners from across the country, not just from the city of Buffalo. I was fortunate enough to sit with Judge Sloan and number of a number of members from across the country to begin to devise what is now be, call it, become called the ten essential elements for Opioid intervention.

00;29;01;27 - 00;29;24;07
Jeff Smith
Courts and the federal government will soon, send those out all across the country and ideally individual places, all throughout our states will be able to utilize those ten essential elements to make what fits for their community. And that was the other thing I learned. Not every community is the same, and not every community has the same resources.

00;29;24;11 - 00;29;46;02
Jeff Smith
Some communities have a lot more. I've been so impressed being here in Knoxville about what's available. And and what is great about that is you can take what you have already. Go back to that analogy of the stone soup and start to look at what's going to come into the pot to help out, Knoxville, Tennessee, and what goes in the pot to help Buffalo, New York.

00;29;46;04 - 00;30;07;08
Jeff Smith
And what's going to help Anchorage, Alaska, for all of me. What I do know is, getting community resources together and using them collaboratively has made this work. And that was a lesson learned. Also, we can do things without much new resource, but we have to always go back and look about, about us, about what we have.

00;30;07;08 - 00;30;12;15
Jeff Smith
And what is already there. And maybe we're under utilizing something and we have to get them involved a little bit more.

00;30;12;16 - 00;30;25;07
Host
Mr. Smith. So you've gotten a lot of attention nationally for your program. What kind of outreach has other judges or from other districts across the country, directed toward you?

00;30;25;09 - 00;30;52;17
Jeff Smith
Well, yes, we we've had a lot of attention. We've had a lot of attention, actually, from the Bureau of Justice Assistance and the Office of National Drug Control Policy. They've asked if it is capable of being replicated. They've asked if they can get more information. Most recently, we've had a significant number of evaluators in, from the Bureau of Justice Assistance because it is my understanding they would like to take and develop a, if you will, a how to manual.

00;30;52;17 - 00;31;14;05
Jeff Smith
And once they do that, be able to start funding pilot projects throughout the country. That would would be similar to. But I don't ever want to say mirror the Buffalo model. And I think what Judge Sloan and I learned in our, our collective, meetings with those individuals from across the country were that you don't have to cookie cut this.

00;31;14;05 - 00;31;36;00
Jeff Smith
We can we can make our models such as t rocks and the models such as what's happening in Buffalo and models that have now patterned after Buffalo, say, out in Arizona or in Florida or in Pennsylvania. They have all come to visit and see what's going on. But what's interesting, who comes to visit are the members of the judiciary that really do want to make a difference in their community.

00;31;36;00 - 00;31;56;27
Jeff Smith
And the members that come with those members of the judiciary are those that they've been able to, for lack of better words, get to come to their stone soup pots that they have in their areas. And the way that we do things is very simple. Show them what we're doing, tell them why we're doing it, and then say, take the pieces you want.

00;31;57;01 - 00;32;26;06
Jeff Smith
Because if you just do just a little bit of change, don't take the whole model, take one piece of it. You will save lives. It doesn't take a whole lot of attention to the matter other than trying to, in the words of Judge Sloan, catch somebody a little further upstream and then after catching them upstream, making sure they get the medicine, they get the medical attention they need and you'll be able to carry them right along and follow through with with models that people have already established in their local communities.

00;32;26;08 - 00;32;51;23
Jeff Smith
But the idea is just kind of tweak your model just a little bit to see if we can get someone a little bit earlier before they do take that fatal dose. And second, once you do have them there, can we make sure that they get the proper medical attention in what would be described as an immediate situation? The word rapid is thrown around quite frequently in our country, and rapid seems to have a different definition depending on who you're speaking with.

00;32;51;25 - 00;33;13;29
Jeff Smith
And at one time in the city of Buffalo, rapid intervention as far as treatment was anywhere between a three week to a three month waiting list to get the medication. To a heroin addict, rapid is not three weeks to three months. Rapid is. I'll go see my dealer in under 15 minutes and I won't be sick. So if I can get it within 24 hours, they're willing to wait.

00;33;14;01 - 00;33;24;02
Host
And just learn. How is The Rock's concept being implemented across other districts in Tennessee? But actually it's not being implemented across the country, in other districts.

00;33;24;04 - 00;33;58;17
Judge Sloan
So, we've been able to do that through training people that are involved, which are the usual suspects, meaning, the district attorney generals, that prosecute the cases at the defense, bar and the, jailers, and that was a, actually an agency that I left out earlier that is, really essential to making this work because it is your, jail staff that that, takes the, in our case, people that are, in custody.

00;33;58;17 - 00;34;29;05
Judge Sloan
And most of the people we serve through Tin Rocks are, in custody. And the criminal justice liaison interfaces within, as soon as possible makes all the connections to the treatment provider. But it's very important. And, I think Jeff would and Judge Brock would both agree with me that, there be no gap between, being released from jail, to the treatment provider and, and that's, in my opinion, one of the reasons that, Buffalo was having such success in their program is because there is no gap.

00;34;29;07 - 00;34;52;15
Judge Sloan
And so, our, our, sheriff's department, our jailers are key partners. We have to train up, other criminal justice liaisons that we already have held to, work with the courts. We, train our treatment providers how, rocks works and our recovery support services, within communities, how rocks works that we implemented, rocks.

00;34;52;17 - 00;35;15;25
Judge Sloan
I think it was five new, judicial districts in Tennessee last year. I think the plan is six new judicial districts this year. And, I believe the intention, with, governor Lee and the Department of Corrections and Department of Mental Health and Substance Abuse Services is to continue to scale, the Rock's approach up across the state, in the very near future.

00;35;15;27 - 00;35;21;28
Host
Judge Brock, do you feel the types of innovations that we're talking about today are the future of the criminal justice system?

00;35;22;01 - 00;35;50;17
Judge Brock
You know, I like to say that, the judiciary didn't really choose recovery courts. They chose us. You know, it it they were born out of, a necessity to deal with a problem that was overwhelming, that there were not adequate resources, to deal with. And the courts were feeling overwhelmed. I remember feeling that way back in the 90s when I went on the bench in 1990.

00;35;50;17 - 00;36;31;12
Judge Brock
And I remember, you know, having the feeling that, you know, there's nothing we can do. And, and recovery courts were kind of invented and created out of that kind of that feeling. So they kind of chose us. And so we did it because we really had no choice. The problems were so overwhelming. They were so pervasive, and they touched so many people, and they touch every type of case we hear, whether it's civil, whether it's criminal, whether it's, child welfare, it it's just the elephant in the room it has been since I've started.

00;36;31;14 - 00;36;46;22
Judge Brock
So, we're going to have to be innovative. We're going to have to continue to be innovative because, you know, we're kind of it. I hate to say that, but, we are we are where the people are. They are in our courts.

00;36;46;24 - 00;36;51;21
Host
And touched on. What is your advice to judges, court managers and others? You want to try something new in their.

00;36;51;21 - 00;37;33;14
Judge Sloan
Courtroom, be willing to, be criticized, about, doing something new, when, I would, give the individual what their second chance. Their third chance. Their fourth chance. You know, I could see the frustration in the prosecutors. As in body language, that most people in criminal justice, service, like, sheriff's departments, probation officers, however, so be willing to, endure that pushback because inevitably, just like they did in our judicial district, what they start seeing are those outcomes.

00;37;33;16 - 00;37;55;01
Judge Sloan
And, so, in the words of one of my assistant district attorney generals, it was a very zealous prosecutor. He says for him, it's a whole new way of looking at public safety. And now we can point to the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation web site that shows Granger County, Tennessee, has a 50% reduction in Barclay rates, over the last four years.

00;37;55;04 - 00;38;26;14
Judge Sloan
And, we have no jail overcrowding. We don't have the, repeat, offenders, in that county. We don't have jail overcrowding in the other county of Jefferson County. So those, law enforcement, community, the district attorney generals, probation officers, they, they come to understand that, this works. And, that's another of course, a stakeholder that has to have training our our judges right in the basics of addiction and treatment and recovery supports.

00;38;26;16 - 00;38;50;12
Judge Brock
If I had to and I've made this speech to our our judges before, but my advice would be to do it. Just do it. And and it's, it will be the most rewarding thing you've ever done professionally and probably person and one of the most rewarding things you have been personally. It's the right thing to do.

00;38;50;14 - 00;39;21;15
Judge Brock
It's it promotes public safety. It, is a wise use of public monies. It saves money. No matter how you look at it. It's the it's the correct, inappropriate and right thing to do. So that would be my advice. And that's, you know, I'm like, Judge Sloan, we've been doing this a while, and I've had a little while to digest all of this, and, and so I would recommend that you just do it.

00;39;21;18 - 00;39;23;25
Host
Mr. Smith, give us some parting advice.

00;39;24;01 - 00;39;49;26
Jeff Smith
The parting advice is this. I agree 100% with what the judge just said. But the one thing, and this is probably the most rewarding thing that I have seen since starting this adventure, and in 95 with treatment courts, is you can actually see the lives you are saving if you do not do it. These individuals with this particular substance that we're talking about today will not be alive.

00;39;49;28 - 00;40;09;23
Jeff Smith
It's a fact. It's a medical fact. They aren't going to make it through the day or the week or the month. There is no doubt in anyone's mind if they continue to use, if they continue to come out of jail after 90 days stays, one year stays, and they're still an addict without any medical linkage, that first dose is going to be their death.

00;40;09;27 - 00;40;20;15
Jeff Smith
So did just think about how many lives you are saving as a member of the judiciary, as a member of the treatment community, as a member of law enforcement, you can't have a better feeling.

00;40;20;17 - 00;40;27;09
Host
Judge proc Judge Sloan, Mr. Smith, thank you all for joining us on this edition of Tennessee Court Talk.

00;40;27;11 - 00;40;28;25
Judge Sloan
Thank you. Thank you for having us.

00;40;28;28 - 00;40;29;12
Jeff Smith
Thank you.