A court-based program in Portland intended to keep drug addicts out of jail is staying open after Gov. Paul LePage intervened to end a dispute that had cut off access to a growing number of addicts in the state’s most densely populated county.
A nearly 2-year-old dispute between the Department of Corrections and court officials over how aggressively to enforce violations in the Cumberland County Drug Court led to a freeze on accepting new cases. Court officials were set to abolish the program as soon as the five remaining drug-addicted convicts in the program either graduated or were sent back to prison.
At LePage’s request, the acting commissioner of the Department of Corrections reached out to court officials in recent months to end the dispute and vowed to dedicate a probation officer to work exclusively with drug addicts in the court program in the near future. The dedication of a probation officer will allow the program to expand to accept as many as 40 convicts in need of drug treatment.
“I think it is really going to be a model that we can replicate in other areas in the state,” Acting Commissioner Joseph Fitzpatrick said.
The program’s reprieve comes as increasing addiction to drugs such as heroin and prescription painkillers has fueled a rise in fatal overdoses and in crimes, such as pharmacy robberies. The number of people in Maine seeking treatment for opiate abuse has more than doubled in the last decade to about 4,800 in 2013. In the last three years alone, demand for treatment has increased 15 percent, according to the Maine Office of Substance Abuse.
The Portland-based drug court is a program for drug-addicted felons who have already served part of their sentences and are now on probation. Drug court participants are supervised by the court and have the threat of the remainder of their jail sentences hanging over their heads if they get into trouble again.
While drug court is run by the state’s Judicial Branch, it has no authority over the probation department, which answers to the Department of Corrections, the agency that runs the state’s adult prisons and juvenile correctional facilities.
The dispute started in 2012 over what the two sides described as a “philosophical difference of opinion” over how aggressively violations in the Cumberland County Drug Court program should be enforced. The Department of Corrections had introduced a new set of probation policies in October 2012 under LePage’s former corrections commissioner, Joseph Ponte, that made it much more difficult for convicts who violate the terms of their probation to be sent back to jail.
As the dispute over the new policies reached an impasse, the Department of Corrections withdrew its probation officer from the drug court program, leaving no dedicated law enforcement officer to punish infractions, such as drug relapses or failure to report an address change. In response, the drug court stopped admitting new drug-addicted convicts last year and let its enrollment numbers dwindle from more than two dozen to just five in the program now.
While LePage was long aware of the dispute, he didn’t address the problem until this spring after he appointed Fitzpatrick as acting corrections commissioner in March. Ponte left to take a high-level corrections position in New York City.
“The governor asked me to take a look at the situation and resolve it,” Fitzpatrick said.
Fitzpatrick has since created a new probation officer post within his department whose sole responsibility will be to oversee a new class of drug court participants. That probation officer, Mike Lyon, will not be required to follow the policies introduced in 2012 that led to the impasse. He will begin his new drug court duties as soon as another probation officer graduates from the academy and can take over Lyon’s roles supervising probationers in Biddeford, Fitzpatrick said.
Cumberland County District Attorney Stephanie Anderson said Fitzpatrick called her in June and asked for an urgent meeting with her and Judge Jeffrey Moskowitz, who presides over the Cumberland County Drug Court.
To Anderson, who founded the Cumberland County Drug Court in 1998, her meeting with Fitzpatrick soon after that initial phone call was a success.
“Based on what the commissioner has said and done, he is like-minded with me and the rest of the team,” Anderson said.
“I was very impressed with what they want to do. I want this to succeed,” Fitzpatrick said.
Attorney Kristine Hanly, who serves as a defense lawyer to all drug court participants in the Portland program, called Fitzpatrick’s renewed dedication “great news.”
“Having a probation officer or any law enforcement officer on the ground allows us to hold our clients accountable for their actions,” Hanly said.
Hanly said it is not the harshness of the punishment that gets results, but the immediacy and predictability of the punishment.
“Especially in the early stages of recovery, you need the external reason to abstain from drugs before it becomes internalized,” Hanly said. “After enough time in the program, you can see the switch flip and they are working toward recovery themselves.”
Mary Ann Lynch, the Judicial Branch spokeswoman, called drug addiction an epidemic and Fitzpatrick’s decision “wonderful news.”
“We are extremely pleased that a reinvigorated and improved drug court, which includes a full-time probation officer, will serve the Portland area,” Lynch said.
LePage, who is running for re-election in November, has refused to answer any questions about Cumberland County Drug Court, including a question about why he chose to intervene years into the dispute.
LePage made Maine’s drug addiction problem one of the key points in his 2014 State of the State Address, calling for budget increases for law enforcement officers and prosecutors. But he was criticized at the time by his opponents for not focusing on drug addiction treatment.
“The governor believes this will take a multi-pronged approach from addressing the drug-dealers and getting them off the streets and assisting those who are addicted to drugs. There are opportunities to support the treatment and recovery of drug abusers, and the LePage Administration is proactive in this effort,” his spokeswoman, Adrienne Bennett, said in an email.
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