The Jersey City Independent "

It’s 9:30 Monday morning, and the Hudson County courtroom in Jersey City is almost full. Several dozen men, and a few women, squeeze onto wooden benches packed near capacity. Owing to the season, they wear hooded sweatshirts, Timberland boots, baggy jeans. The room buzzes, classical music plays in the background. Two men in the front row talk quietly. One reads a text message off the screen of his cell phone and turns toward his neighbor to complain about the sender, a woman. He sucks his teeth, and shakes his head.

“She’s on me like a cheap suit,” he says.

Then, to emphasize the point, “She on me like Drug Court.”

Coarse as it is, the comment is persuasive evidence that everything is as it should be in this room: unsolicited testimony that Hudson County’s Drug Court is as overbearing, reluctantly tolerated, and ultimately indispensable as a smothering lover. It would probably bring a smile to the lips of the court’s administrators — who count their ability to closely monitor participants as one of their greatest assets — to know that their efforts have risen to the level of metaphor.

Every county in New Jersey has set aside a room just like this one; a court guided by the idea that it is more cost-effective, efficient, and humane to treat drug users for their addiction than it is to incarcerate them. Here, the adversarial process of a criminal proceeding has been replaced by a collaborative one, where public defender, prosecutor and judge (more or less) play for the same team. Their common goal is preventing program participants from being incarcerated, and they accomplish it by connecting them with a constellation of treatment programs, counselors and support groups. And by keeping them on a very short leash.

For their part, drug court participants must submit to the tether. The program is an alternative to incarceration, only available to drug dependent non-violent offenders. After arrest, eligible arrestees are brought to this room and offered the choice between incarceration and institutional smothering. Those that choose the latter return to this room regularly for up to five years, and must agree to submit to the treatments recommended by the court, as well as regular drug testing. If participation wasn’t voluntary, the program would hardly be effective.

Most criminal courts are alienating places; rooms where strangers or near-strangers anxiously wait to hear their name called so they can step before the bench and learn their fate. But everyone here this morning has been here before, many times, as part of the same group. Common experience, the presence of friends, and the predictability of the proceedings puts everyone at ease. In place of anxiety, in drug court there is boredom.

To kill a few empty minutes waiting for the judge to appear, one man agrees to be interviewed.

“Call me Marcus,” he says in the hallway after being told the court does not allow the names of program participants to appear in the press.

Marcus, 36, renders his story with a minimum of words, and organizes it as a series of logical choices, not a dramatic redemptive narrative.

About a year ago, he was arrested and charged with distributing narcotics. While in custody, he was offered a choice between state prison and drug court. “It was an opportunity,” he says.

Before his arrest he was using heroin and “smoking reefer,” the latter since he was 16.

“I was running the street, selling drugs…just running,” he says.

Has he been incarcerated before?

“Yeah … it didn’t really help me.”

After applying for and being admitted to drug court, Marcus was sent to a residential treatment program called Damon House, and when he graduated from that program he began intensive outpatient treatment. He attends Narcotics Anonymous and Alcoholics Anonymous meetings regularly. According to his probation officer, his record is, so far, without a blemish.

As required by the court, Marcus has a job. And since his arrest he has become a major part of his three-year-old daughter’s life.

“Before, I didn’t want no kids, didn’t want no responsibility,” he says.

Asked how often he sees her, Marcus peers up from under his brow with a look of either pity or incredulity.

“Every day,” he says.

For eight months, Marcus has attended court every Monday and he has gotten to know some of the other regulars. Most are honestly “trying to make it,” he says. Very few are just trying to get over.

Drug court has four phases. As participants progress from one phase to the next they are incrementally granted greater freedom, and mistakes may result in demotion. Owing to Marcus’ spotless record, the time he has invested already, and the fact that he is employed, he is likely to be promoted to phase two soon. When that happens, he will only be required to visit court twice a month, but for now he’s due back inside where he will wait longer then he expects for his name to be called.

A Young Legal Innovation

New Jersey first experimented with drug courts in 1996, when they were established in Camden and Essex Counties. Those early efforts were funded by federal grants, but as the state started to see results from the program, support grew. In 2000, the Conference of Criminal Presiding Judges recommended that drug court should be adopted as a “Best Practice” by the criminal division. By 2005, every county in New Jersey had a drug court that was fully funded by the state. Hudson County’s was the last to begin operation, and Judge Sheila Venable has presided over it for four years, almost its entire life.

In judicial terms, drug court is a very young innovation. Because it is new, and follows rules that bear little resemblance to those observed in criminal proceedings, the program seems vulnerable to criticism from a number of angles. Too soft on crime, for one. Too different, for another. But Venable brushes these concerns aside. Despite, or maybe because of, their novelty, drug courts are “very much in favor” within the county and the judiciary, she says. After a moment’s consideration she follows with, “but we don’t sit on our laurels.”

Part of not resting is submitting to interviews even when time is tight, and promoting statistics that support her case. According to a recent statewide study, New Jersey saves about $27,500 per year for every person sentenced to drug court instead of incarceration. The program has also been shown to reduce crime, with the reconviction rate for program graduates less than one-fifth the rate for drug offenders released from state prison.

There are currently more than 2,000 drug courts operating nationwide, and results comparable to New Jersey’s have been found in other states. A 2008 paper issued by the National Drug Court Institute found that drug courts “reduce crime rates an average of approximately 7 to 14 percentage points” but sometimes as high as 35 percentage points. And a study released by the federal General Accounting Office in 2005 found that recidivism data collected from 23 states, “showed that lower percentages of drug court program participants than comparison group members were rearrested or reconvicted.”

Venable synopsizes the findings, saying drug court is a win-win for all.

“It’s giving them [participants] a benefit; it’s giving the state a benefit” she says. But she seems less interested in numbers and dollar signs than outcomes that defy economic calculation.

The standard punishment for the commission of a crime is separation from society, incarceration in either jail or prison. In contrast, drug court is designed to cement or renew an offender’s connection to society, and this is the element of the program Venable speaks about most passionately. The court, she says, encourages participants to reconnect with their families, regain custody of their children, get jobs, recover their driving privileges, and take the responsibilities of parenthood seriously.

“It’s wonderful to know that a drug-free baby is being born because of drug court,” she says. Statewide, 186 children have been born to clean and sober mothers participating in the program; Venable can claim some credit for five of them.

Being incarcerated is an entirely passive process. It requires nothing of the person convicted, besides allowing themselves to be shackled and led from cell to cell, courtroom to courtroom. But drug court asks quite a bit. It requires that participants abide by the dictates of a judge — and a large team of clinicians, lawyers and probation officers — for as long as five years. Drug court sets its participants free, where they are surrounded by temptation, but prohibits them from ever indulging. Contrary to the popular idea that drug court is easy on criminals, it is striking just how much it requires of them.

This difference between the level of effort needed to be locked up and the amount required by drug court means some eligible convicts inevitably choose incarceration. Others join the program and then leave. Keeping the docket full, and encouraging participants to remain connected to the program, is a constant challenge for the court.

Hudson County’s drug court currently retains 68.3 percent of the people who enroll, the third-highest rate in New Jersey. Their good standing is a testament both to the program’s participants and Venable’s ability, and willingness, to use both carrot and stick.

While criminal courts can only impose penalties, Venable’s drug court also has the power to reward good behavior. She frequently praises program participants on the record, and makes a point of turning graduations into gala events. (State Sen. Sandra Cunningham attended the most recent one.) Even some of the penalties at Venable’s disposal seem like rewards when compared to the standard for a regular criminal court. In place of jail time, a sentence of community service might be handed down. Under the right circumstances, the penalty for testing positive for drugs might be writing an essay explaining what motivated the mistake.

The court hands down punishments and rewards in a manner catered to the individual, their clinical needs and their progress. An attempt is made to establish trust between everyone involved. To that end, penalties are sometimes reduced if confession precedes apprehension, an outcome program staff describe as nearly certain.

Drug Court probation officers have case loads one-third the size of their peers, which allows them to keep a close watch on their charges, often visiting them at unexpected times, even weekends. And there is no way to hide drug use while enrolled in the program, Venable says. To drive home the point, Patricia DellOsso, the program’s coordinator, gives a rapid-fire listing of the drug tests the court has at its disposal. It is so long and technically complex that it defies transcription.

‘I Wouldn’t Have Wanted to be Around My Family’

And now Venable has been called to court for the second time. She really must take the bench.

The court gallery hums with lethargic chatter. The men and women filling the benches clutch pieces of signed paper that prove they attended the required number of recovery meetings, and certificates confirming they have completed drug treatment programs. One by one they stand and take their place at a table set near the judge, in front of a plaque that reads “Defendant.” It is unclear who they are defending themselves against.

In her chambers, Venable was quick with a smile and a self-effacing joke, but now the jurist’s mask is on. In court, she is the stern, mostly benevolent mother of every person in the audience. The one everyone wants to please, and no one is quite sure whether they should fear.

The first man called stands before her with hands clasped.

“How was your Thanksgiving?” she asks.

It was good, he says.

“How would it have been different if you were not clean and sober?”

“I wouldn’t have wanted to be around my family,” he responds.

Venable continues in this vein. Her questions, tinged with skepticism, probe the way a lawyer’s do during a cross examination, but her goal is more pedagogical than argumentative. She is asking the man standing before her to prove that drug treatment has given him insight into the choices he makes. The truth or falsity of his description of Thanksgiving is beside the point.

The line of questioning ends with, “How long have you been clean and sober?”

“Two weeks,” the man says.

The room, led by the judge, responds with applause. Every person that appears before Venable this morning will be asked the same question, and in turn they will provide answers — nine months and two weeks, 109 days, eight months and 19 days, four and a half months – that are always greeted by the same collective response.

Halfway through the court calendar, a man is called who has not been meeting his obligations. Twice he has not reported for drug testing, an error considered tantamount to testing positive. Head hung, he submits to his fate. A sturdy court officer approaches, and cuffs the man’s hands behind his back.

Venable delivers a sentence of five days, and in the same breath commends the man for his recent commitment to his son. “If you were out in the street, you wouldn’t be thinking about him.”

The four probation officers interviewed for this article, as well as the judge and the court coordinator, gave the same answer when asked how drug court affects participants.

“They come in disheveled, but little by little they get themselves together,” Duberney Restrepo, Marcus’ probation officer said.

“What I enjoy about drug court — I can see when someone is admitted, and how they improve,” Venable said.

In part because of the uniformity of the response, these answers were written off as the sort of pablum well run organizations feed to journalists. A simplistic, coordinated answer designed to drive home the point that the court’s intervention is necessary, and uniformly effective. It was resigned to the bottom of the notepad page.

But as the court session comes to a close it is impossible to deny the sentiment’s apparent truth. Present in the room, in addition to drug court regulars, are eight people applying to enter the program. After watching the crowd for three hours it is possible to identify this second group at a glance. A couple are noticeably ill kempt. One man seated in the gallery is nodding off, his body cantilevered forward precariously in what is often called a “dope-fiend-lean.”

Five are cuffed, and waiting in the jury box to be addressed by the judge. One of them glares at the audience throughout the proceedings, the only irascible face in the room. At one point he forgets the cuffs and tries to stretch his arms above his head. When the steel bracelets cut into his wrists he curses under his breath. In contrast, the drug court regulars chat with each other and complain about nagging text messages. They are affable; some are smiling. Twice, a court officer has to ask them to quiet down. In front of the judge, they are all deferential.

The linear transformation described by all the court staff is on display in the room. The spectrum begins with the half-conscious gentleman in the second row, and travels all the way to Marcus, seated a few yards away.

He is wearing an obviously new, possibly expensive, white coat with red stripes on its shoulders. His beard is neatly trimmed, his hair kept short. He looks imperturbable, calm, and just a little bored. He looks like what he is, the employed father of a three-year-old. A 36-year-old man — not an addict or a menace — just a guy.

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