SERIALIZATION: “NADCP and the Drug Court Movement: “A first person account 1990 to 2001”.

NO. 1 In a Series of Observations: An Epiphany in Morocco

November 18, 2020June 8, 2014 by admin

June 9, 2014

An Epiphany in Morocco

[It was 1973. I had somehow passed the California Bar and had taken off for a round the world trip (though I had no idea of my itinerary). The trip was to last almost a year and a half. Europe was too cold in February, so I took the ferry from Spain to Morocco and spent a month acclimating to a world still steeped in the middle ages.]

The trip through the Atlas Mountains to Marakesh was a frigid night time bus ride through winding mountain roads and heavy snowfall. Normally I took a bus driver’s eccentricities calmly or at least suppressed my panic. But watching the white faced, cringing fellow passengers scream at the bus driver did little to assuage any fears. That we made it thorugh is a matter of fate and not probability.

Carpets, dresses, smoking paraphernalia, and more in the myriad shops in the narrow streets of the Medina. You could stop at shops where men worked at hand sewing garments or spinning stone wheels to sharpen knives. So many of the things sold on the market seemed to be made nearby. And you could visit the workshops and haggle with the proprietor about price over a glass of tea..

One night I sat in a outdoor café, and watched the evening traffic of pedestrians ebb as the moon grew full. I noticed a young boy I had observed earlier in the day begging for alms. He had no legs, and sat on a crude platform with wheels, begging. He was a pitiful sight. Tonight he was playing tag with his friends, laughing and scampering about he marketplace on his wheeled chariot.

It occurs to me that here was a lesson about community there worth remembering. What we take as unacceptable, pitiful, and needing to be hidden from sight in our culture, could be an acceptable part of a vibrant community elsewhere. Even tragic circumstances can be endured and surmounted if your community accepts you as one of their own

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The Importance of Front-End Reentry Court Jurisdiction

April 20, 2014April 13, 2014 by admin

April 21, 2014

The following article published in 2012, provides an excellent review of the concepts central to Reentry Courts, the different models of Reentry Courts, and a Table of states with reentry court jurisdiction. It would be an excellent starting point to learn about reentry courts and “Front -End Reentry Courts in particular.

If you’ve been reading the blogs on this website, you probably figured out I’m a proponent of “Front-End Reentry Court” (FERC). And you probably know that Front-End jurisdiction already exists in most jurisdictions, and with FERC there’s little reason for conflict with corrections, parole or other agencies over control of exiting prisoners, and finally that it costs relatively little to incarcerate someone in jail/prison for 4 months as opposed to four years. But the most compelling of arguments for FERC, is that its “the best way to reduce recidivism by keeping the offender out of prison (or at least limiting the prison term substantially).

As President Emeritus, and advisor to NADCP’s Board of Directors on Reentry Courts, I was asked to follow-up on a paper I wrote several years ago on existing reentry court models (Ten-Prison Based Reentry Court Models). I had a very limited idea of where contacts between the courts and prisoners or ex-prisoners existed. Without that information, it seemed difficult for anyone to formulate a realistic strategy for using the courts to reduce recidivism and/or prison populations.

Over the past several months, I’ve contacted some forty-five states (give or take) and asked where those points of contact were. (See: The Importance of Jurisdiction in Court-Based Reentry). Looking at the data, a pattern became apparent. There were relatively few states that gave their courts jurisdicition to supervise offenders coming back from prison, but many (and i believe most) gave their judges authority to recall an offender within a statutory period of time for resentencing. Some courts were doing this on a case by case basis, while others were using short term prison sentences systemically, to do treatment and/or assessments.