Recovery Scioto -- Giving Thugs Chance After Chance

When the general public is under attack from criminal elements, the response to stop the flow of crime must be swift and decisive to have the greatest positive effect. Left unhindered, those involved in criminal activities will wreak havoc as they force entire communities into submission. This capitulation occurs in Scioto County, and I believe it is being aided and abetted by certain elements of the recovery and rehabilitation community.

The U.S. Department of Justice lists three types of offenses:

1. Crimes Against Persons – such as assault, battery, domestic violence, rape, and murder
2. Crimes Against Property – such as vandalism, shoplifting, robbery, bribery, burglary, and arson
3. Crimes Against Society – such as gambling, prostitution, drug violations, and weapon law violations

As a concerned and lawful citizen, my duty is to prevent crimes against people, against their property, and against the society of my fellow man. However, of late, to most of us in Scioto County, these obligations – and I can fully understand why – have largely dwindled to maintaining close family concerns with a general indifference to society as a whole. Maintaining personal obligations to the nuclear family, such as insuring their health and safety, have become so stressful and time consuming that many people ignore their commitment to stop crimes against society.

People still living here, especially those in what are considered to be the middle and lower economic classes, have become acclimated to “living among them” – the element that perpetrates crime. Well-meaning people pay lip service to change. They say “Something ought to be done” or “I wish someone would clean this up,” but they do not take on their own obligations to the community to become a part of the solution.

Scioto County is a depressed Appalachian locality crippled by the opioid epidemic and all of the misdeeds and offenses perpetrated by those criminals who operate within that drug system. Hope should anchor itself to efforts to better society by getting tough on repeat offenders – those who employ drugs and crime to drag down local communities. It is time to deny the “third, fourth, and fifth chances” and criminals' carte blanche access to our communities Instead, we must stand tall as community members to fight repeat offenders, and that includes stopping any complicity with recovery and rehab services.

I have no doubt that one major problem in the Scioto recovery community is that good and honest efforts to rehabilitate clients often shield the criminal element. When this occurs, it is society that suffers. Not only does recovery have a duty to clients, but also it has an even greater duty to protect the public from harm. No one should have to suffer the crimes perpetrated by those who abuse recovery and rehab.

A Bureau of Justice report released in 2017 revealed that 21% of sentenced people in state prisons and local jails are incarcerated for crimes committed to obtain drugs or money for drugs. Almost 40% of people locked up for property crimes and 14% of those incarcerated for violent crimes reported that they had committed their most serious offense for drug-related reasons.

(Jennifer Bronson, Ph.D., and Jessica Stroop, BJS Statisticians Stephanie Zimmer and Marcus Berzofsky, Dr.P.H., RTI International. “Drug Use, Dependence, and Abuse Among State Prisoners and Jail Inmates, 2007-2009.” U.S. Department of Justice. June 2017.)

Some research shows that an estimated 65% percent of the United States prison population has an active substance abuse disorder. Another 20% percent did not meet the official criteria for an SUD, but were under the influence of drugs or alcohol at the time of their crime.

The Office of National Drug Control Policy (2013) found as offenders are arrested for more offenses, the likelihood that they have only drug crimes or only non-drug crimes as prior offenses decreases. Criminals with a substantial history of arrests are more likely to have a combination of drug and non-drug crimes in their background.

A series of panel data analyses were conducted among more than 5,000 jurisdictions nationwide from 1995 to 2002 to assess the impact of drug court implementation grants on UCR Part I felony offenses. Consistent with prior findings, drug court implementation grants were associated with net increases in vehicle theft, burglary, larceny, and some violent offenses.

David R. Lilly wrote in “Drug Courts and Community Crime Rates: A Nationwide Analysis of Jurisdiction-Level Outcomes,” Journal of Criminology (2013) …

“Drug court procedures should be designed to more quickly identify noncompliant individuals and ensure that they do not remain unsupervised and unaccountable in the community for extended periods of time (including those who are removed from the program).

“Moreover, the legal authority of drug court judges to incarcerate noncompliant individuals should be clearly specified so that persons who are diverted prior to trial for burglary, vehicle theft, or other offenses cannot find a loophole in the process. Alternatively, drug courts could be limited strictly to postconviction individuals.”

Another study that involved random assignment of eligible individuals noted that the average drug court participant had twelve prior arrests. Taken together, these studies suggest that drug court participants were not solely comprised of minor and infrequent offenders, but rather that a substantial portion were involved in serious nondrug-related felonies prior to admission.

(D. C. Gottfredson, B. W. Kearley, and S. D. Bushway, “Substance use, drug treatment, and crime: an examination of intra-individual variation in a drug court population,” Journal of Drug Issues, vol. 38, no. 2, pp. 601–630, 2008.)

The challenge of delivering treatment requires the cooperation and coordination of two essentially different cultures: the criminal justice system organized to punish the offender and protect society and the drug abuse treatment systems organized to help the addicted individual.

Addressing addiction as a disease does not remove the responsibility of the individual. Rather it highlights the personal responsibility of the addicted person to seek and adhere to drug treatment and that of society to ensure that such treatment is available and based on scientific evidence.

A drug abuse treatment system that harbors, shelters, and abets repeat criminal offenders who terrorize and pillage Scioto neighborhoods should be reformed. Those who work in the treatment programs should never connive to condone or to allow criminal activity. In a despondent area like Scioto County, one helping hand aids the other dirty fist. Frankly, the public is sick of the collaboration. They want the fear, the crime, and the desperation to end.

The only way to end the grip of addiction and crime in Scioto County is to apply public pressure and stand up against those who repeat offenses. You can sense a confident thug attitude in many who believe the present arrangement protects their criminal behaviors. These offenders use and abuse the systems of treatment and justice over and over and over. This is going to continue until a significant group of citizens organize to effect needed change.