REBUILDING LIVES - ONE AT A TIME

Collaborative Effort Keeps Offenders Out of Jail

Mike Vannoy works a lot at night and he doesn't mind. Vannoy, as director
of the Watauga County Criminal Justice Partnership Program (CJPP), runs an
intensive outpatient substance abuse treatment program for nonviolent
offenders. Working in close partnership with probation officers, New River
Behavioral Healthcare and the Division of Social Services, Vannoy's mission
is to give addicted lawbreakers the necessary tools and support to change
their lives.

Statewide CJPPs were initiated in the mid-1990s to complement North
Carolina's structured sentencing program. Structured sentencing was
developed to help ease prison overcrowding by providing alternatives to
jail time through a combination of local monitoring and treatment. Vannoy
was hired in September 1995 to implement the CJPP in Watauga County and he
is assisted by master's-level interns from ASU. Intermediate offenders who
are assessed as having substance abuse problems are eligible for the CJPP
at no cost, and it's frequently a condition of their probation.

Nonviolent offenders who are sentenced to probation are supervised by the
staff of the Watauga County Division of Community Corrections. Those with
substance addictions are mandated to attend treatment sessions through the
local Criminal Justice Partnership Program. Photo by Kathleen McFadden

As Vannoy points out, "They don't get a free ride." Group members must sign
a contract agreeing to meet three nights per week for three hours each
night and are required to attend a minimum of two Alcoholics Anonymous or
Narcotics Anonymous meetings each week as well. Sessions and meetings are
mandatory. Random and frequent drug screens function as a check to ensure
that group participants stay clean. If they don't or if they miss a group
session or a support meeting Vannoy is on the phone with probation officer
Randy Townsend. The close collaboration between the two men provides an
additional motivation to offenders. Such a probation violation carries the
threat of landing back in court in front of a judge who has the power to
activate the offender's sentence and send him or her to jail.

While Vannoy monitors sobriety and treatment attendance, Townsend and a
surveillance officer, along with the other five probation officers in
Watauga County, monitor other probation conditions, including curfews.

"These are the people, along with our help, who hold these people
accountable for their behavior.," Vannoy said. "We try to help them to
become productive members of society."

Within the next few months, an additional collaborative piece will be added
to the wraparound probation care these offenders receive. Watauga and Avery
counties have been selected to institute a drug court program, and local
attorney Greg Horne, who is a member of the steering committee, explains
that the group is currently undergoing the necessary training to begin the
program. Part of the training is learning how to encourage and motivate
offenders who are doing well and how to deal compassionately and fairly
with those who aren't.

The nationwide drug court program requires offenders to appear in court
every two weeks and provide the judge with a status report, augmented by
reports from their treatment providers and probation officers. Horne points
out that while probation violations currently can take several months
before appearing on the court docket, that won't be the case with drug
court. "There are immediate results," he said, "whether praise or
encouragement or sanctions."

Drug court closes the circle." Horne explained. "It brings in the court
system in a much more timely and meaningful way." Horne said that the local
drug court should be operational by late summer or early fall.

But falling off the wagon does not necessarily entail a quick, no-questions
trip to prison in a Department of Corrections vehicle. Vannoy emphasizes
that he and Townsend address each case individually, recognizing, as Vannoy
says, that "Relapse is part of recovery." That is a tenet of drug court as
well. "Many people are going to fall. We try to be realistic and flexible
and treat on a case-by-case basis," Vannoy explained.

Vannoy's intensive outpatient group is a highly structured program that
includes a number of different components, including education about the
nature of addiction, development of coping mechanisms and skills, anger
management and relaxation therapy. In addition to the 12-week initial
program, the program includes relapse prevention, cognitive behavior
intervention, family and aftercare components. Private counseling is often
an additional aspect of treatment.

In all, the program consumes a great deal of the offender's time. "We
usually have contact with them for one year," Vannoy said. Some clients
require detox and inpatient stays before beginning the outpatient program,
but money and space for providing such services is severely limited. Vannoy
pointed out that the state treatment facility at Black Mountain usually has
a waiting list of one month or longer, creating a frustrating situation for
offenders who need inpatient care. "It is very important to get these
people into treatment quickly," Vannoy said. Consequently, he will work
with such clients on an intensive outpatient basis until an inpatient space
is available. Sometimes, he said, they do so well that by the time they can
be admitted, they don't need it and simply continue the outpatient program.

Since its inception in 1997, the local CJPP has achieved a successful
completion rate of 47 percent. That means that participants have completed
the full year of treatment and met all the treatment goals, have stayed
clean and have not reoffended. The 43 percent who don't make it, Vannoy
said, are the people who have chosen not to comply with the program and
treatment. "We've got the treatment program here. It's our job to help
motivate, but it ultimately falls to them and their willingness to change,"
Vannoy explained.

Although alcohol is the number one addiction Vannoy sees in his group, he
has seen them all, including methamphetamine. "Meth is not anything new,"
he said. "We've been seeing it since 1997, but over the past year there has
been a rise in those cases." Currently, eight members of Vannoy's group are
meth abusers and he said the drug is "probably the most difficult to treat
because of the physical and psychological damage it causes."

The cost of incarceration is a good justification for the program, Vannoy
said, but the Watauga County CJPP operates on a shoestring budget,
qualifying for just over $55,000 this year in state funding. Two years ago,
the funding level was $61,000, but state budgetary cutbacks have taken a
big bite out of an already underfunded pie.

"We could use a lot more money," Vannoy said, to add more inpatient beds,
detox services and mental illness treatment. "It's all about services," he
said, but he gratefully acknowledges the support of the local CJPP board,
the state board, the Watauga County court system and the board of
commissioners.

Sam Boyd, director of the North Carolina CJPP, speaks highly of the local
program. "Personally, I think the Watauga program has done very well," Boyd
said. "You're talking about high-risk people on intensive probation. I
think the Watauga program is effective in what they do and has highly
dedicated people."

Probation officer Townsend also speaks highly of the CJPP. "I couldn't do
my job as effectively without it," he said, "because we wouldn't be giving
these offenders a chance to deal with their substance abuse. It's a real
good program." Townsend acknowledges that he and Vannoy "deal with
successes and some failures, but if people want help, we're in a position
to help them."

Treatment failures are hard to take, but Vannoy likes to focus on treatment
successes. One female client who began the program with a poor attitude
eventually stopped resisting and is now reunited with her children, working
and planning to return to school. A male client had what Vannoy calls "a
difficult time in outpatient" and relapsed frequently. Vannoy and his
probation officer decided to try inpatient treatment as a last resort. It
worked. After his inpatient stay, the man returned to Vannoy's group,
completed the program and, Vannoy said, "turned around for the better."
Another difficult client ended up being a member of the local CJPP board
before he moved out of town. "Some people would have said he wasn't going
to make it," Vannoy said.

"These kinds of stories touch your heard when you see them unfold," he
continued. "I love it when they come by here and say, 'Hey man, I'm still
doing good.' That makes my day. That's special. It doesn't always happen,
but when it does, it makes up for the ones who don't.

"I'm realistic that not everyone's going to make it, but I've learned not
to give up on anybody," Vannoy said. And the 15 offenders in the CJPP right
now are the beneficiaries of his commitment.

Commenting on his nine-year involvement in the CJPP, Vannoy said, "I want
to make a difference in my community. That's all I'm about. I want to help
in my little corner of the world."