LOCAL

Diversion program hopes to steer users away from drugs, jail

DART will provide resources, remove barriers that often complicate recovery progress

Chris Crook
Zanesville Times Recorder
Kasi Stewart will run the Muskingum County Prosecutor's Office DART program. The Diversion and Rehabilitation Treatment program hopes turn first-time, minor felony drug offenders into sober and productive members of the community.

ZANESVILLE − With the hope that it can steer people away from a life of drug abuse, the Muskingum County Prosecutor's Office has founded a diversion and rehabilitation treatment, or DART program.

The program will be aimed at people who are facing their first low-level, drug possession charge. Law enforcement officers at the scene will screen the alleged offenders for suitability for the program. If they meet the criteria for the program, they will not be sent to jail that night but instead given a date to meet with the DART program.

"There is a school of thought that even spending one night in jail has detrimental effects on not just the individual, but the family and the community as a whole," Muskingum County Prosecutor Ron Welch said. Instead of going to jail, the program will get alleged offenders into treatment immediately, rather after they work their way through the legal system. Kasi Stewart, who will serve as the program coordinator, said the program will be unique in that regard, and it is important to avoid the trauma and long-term negative effects of jail time if possible.

If the person about to be arrested for low-level (fourth of fifth degree) felony charge is under the influence of drugs, they will be provided a place to stay that night at a rehabilitation center, Welch said. If they are sober, they will be given a date to report to the DART diversion officer for screening.

The program will work with those "at the gates of drug addiction, who can be turned away and turned down a road of productivity, instead of criminality," said Welch. Mental health and drug addiction are "significantly interwoven in our community," he said, "which leads to problems maintaining a job, which leads to issues maintaining housing."

Should they meet the criteria for the program, they will be placed in the program and provided "layered assistance on multiple fronts," Welch said.

"First and foremost, make sure they have a support network available to provide them with the greatest chance for success." If the network is available, "we will look to see if they need mental health assistance, do they need job assistance, do they need housing assistance. All those things will be interconnected through our diversion program so we are approaching the individuals who are part of the program with whatever help they need." That includes help getting a diver's license. "If they don't have a driver's license, we are going to try and walk them through the channels to get them to where they have one," Welch said, "so they can get to work, so their employment opportunities expand."

Among the criteria to qualify for the program is the support system available to the person facing charges. "We have learned through observing programs already in place that if a person doesn't have a proper support network, the likelihood of success is significantly reduced," Welch said. That means the prospective member of the DART program has someone they can rely on to help them resist the temptation to relapse into drug abuse, and hold them accountable to remain sober.

The program wants to identify individuals who have a strong network of people to help them both steer clear of drugs, but also stay away from bad influences. "If you have someone who is going to remain embedded with 'friends' who are drug users, their chances of success are decreased exponentially, and they won't be placed in the diversion program," Welch said.

Those who hope to be involved in the program cannot have prior violent offenses, and the law enforcement interaction that led to being considered for the program must be their first felony.

DART will draw together a network of behavioral health and drug addiction recovery providers and housing agencies. Employers, not just employment agencies but individual employers who have indicated a willingness to provide employment as part of the program to alleviate worker shortages, will be involved as well. "Maintaining employment and being productive is one of the cornerstones of what we want to accomplish with our diversion program," Welch said.

"If people don't have their basic needs met, like housing and employment, they would be more likely to return to drug use," Stewart said. "We will link them to services so they can get their basic needs met. We are helping link people to treatment, get them employment so they can become stable in the community."

"We realize we can just incarcerate our way out of this problem," Welch said. His office believes incarceration has its place while dealing with the drug problem, but "not every individual that is currently involved with drugs needs to be incarcerated.

"We don't want to have to put people in prison to protect our community, we would much rather give people the tools to have them do productive things on their own and make those good decisions without be forced to as a means of staying out of jail."

Muskingum County Prosecutor Ron Welch

"There are some individuals, who if provided with proper resources and guidance can turn their life from one of future criminal activity, to one of communal productivity."

Helping those in the program won't help just that individual but the community as well. "From a societal standpoint it is way more beneficial that we have people who are not using drugs and have jobs. The drug use of parents has an untold cost to children, because a children who come from homes where drugs are abused are less likely to do well in school, have more anti-social tendencies, and have more issues where they are likely to become involved with law enforcement themselves," Welch said.

Every prospective participant will be evaluated regarding their level of drug abuse. "If you have been involved in the drug culture for a number of years, it is probably not the right program," Welch said, as DART will focus on people who are in the early stages of using or experimenting with drugs. "If it is deeply engrained they may not be appropriate for the diversion program, but we will at least have an understanding of what types of services they may need to be linked to as they move through the criminal justice system," Welch said. "Even through they are not going to be eligible for diversion, that would give them the best chance of being productive.

"One of the things we have discovered through many years of prosecution in our office, if individuals have something they are invested in, like their recovery, or their job, or a house or their family, their likelihood of success is greater. If they have skin the game, they work harder to be successful," Welch said.

DART will be funded by drug seizure money.

"Our office couldn't hire someone to run this program," Welch said. "After Dwight Taylor, we have those funds. We can invest more money toward education and prevention than we ever could before." In August 2020, Taylor was sentenced to 15 years in prison, ending what officials called his reign as one of the largest cocaine dealers in the state. Property and cashed seized as part of the investigation was divided among the Muskingum County Sheriff's Office, Zanesville Police Department, and the Muskingum County Prosecutor's Office. The prosecutor's cut was nearly $2 million.

Stewart, who has a decade of experience in mental health and drug addiction counseling, will work with program participants for a number of years, long enough to ensure their success. Participants will have a year to show they are on the right path, and then the program will continue to work with them. "Our success will be returning people into the community without drug addiction, with a job, with a support network and being productive members of our community," Welch said. Once the participants have completed the program to Welch's satisfaction, charges will be dropped. Should they not make it to necessary benchmarks after a year, they will face the charges that brought them to the program in the first place.

Welch said many similar programs declare a person rehabilitated, "yet those people continue to come in and out of the criminal justice system."

"That is not a success by our definition," Welch said. "Our success is somebody coming into the program, being provided with all the resources they need to succeed, and then making good use of those resources." That means staying out of the criminal justice system, not abusing drugs and living a drug free and productive life, he said. "If we don't do that, then we are not going to pretend it is a success," Welch said.

ccrook@gannettcom

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