Breaking Down Barriers: Arrests decrease under diversion program
ALAMOSA, Colo. — Many people with an addiction to drugs or alcohol will end up spending time in jail. The reasons may be because they cannot afford bail, because they are picked up on warrants for missed court dates or because they are arrested for other crimes while awaiting trial.
This has led to crowded jails and overloaded court dockets nationwide; however, the southern Colorado town of Alamosa is looking to ease these strains by deferring criminal charges for some people as they seek treatment for addiction.
Since implementing its Law Enforcement Assisted Diversion program in 2018, Colorado’s 12th Judicial District has seen a precipitous drop in the number of people arrested and booked into jails, as well as a decrease in the number of arrest warrants issued for people failing to appear for court.
As the district attorney for the 12th Judicial District, Robert Willett oversees criminal prosecutions in six counties, including Alamosa County.
Like Las Vegas, New Mexico, Alamosa has had a high number of property crimes like trespassing, shoplifting and theft, and felony cases were rising when Willett left town to work in Colorado Springs. By the time he returned and took the reins as district attorney, Alamosa’s LEAD program had begun to take shape, and the results were already noticeable.
“When I left Alamosa in 2016, we were at 600 felony filings in Alamosa County. When I came back in 2019, I think we were around 400 felony filings,” he said. “I don’t know if I attribute all of that drop off to (LEAD), but I would say it has had an effect, and I welcome it.”
Reducing warrants
Prior to earning a law degree, Willett spent more than 25 years in law enforcement, which gives him a detailed perspective and understanding of the criminal justice system. Willett and key staff members — Diversion Coordinator Megan Martinez and a LEAD Liaison Scott Dillon — work closely with local police, city leaders and social workers from the Center for Restorative Programs, or CRP, to help make the city’s LEAD program successful.
As Alamosa launched its LEAD program, Dillon began researching other communities with the diversion program already in place. While researching the LEAD program in Santa Fe, New Mexico, Dillon found that when program participants were strongly engaged with social workers, they were rarely arrested for committing new crimes. That’s when he began tracking recidivism rates in Alamosa, and across the 12th Judicial District.
“The more active they are with their case managers, the less they get arrested,” Dillon said. “That’s one thing the policy board has been focusing on: How to keep them engaged with their case managers. How to make sure that they’re using these resources correctly. Even though the road from there may be bumpy, if they’re making progress, that’s the biggest thing.”
As Dillon began tracking cases closely, he noticed that one of the biggest problems was warrants were being issued because people had failed to appear at their court hearings. Dillon and Martinez began working closely with LEAD program managers Carey Deacon and Clarissa Woodworth to find solutions to the problem.
The first step was to figure out why people were missing their hearings. They determined a common reason was related to how the Municipal Court notified people of upcoming court dates, which was typically done by phone using an automated message. Some program participants simply missed phone calls which resulted in a warrant being issued. Others didn’t have a cellphone or used pay-by-the-minute phones that couldn’t always accept calls, and some ignored calls from numbers they didn’t recognize.
“It’s difficult to get people to answer,” Woodworth said. “Some are worried about bill collectors, and if you don’t know who’s calling, you may not answer.”
With increased engagement, case workers were able to keep in better contact with program participants and notify them of upcoming court hearings in person or via text message.
Since going to court can be a stressful or even frightening experience, case workers are also able to explain the court process to program participants ahead of time. And according to Woodworth, once they get to court, case workers are often able to provide the judge with context of the person’s struggle with addiction, and explain the steps they’ve been taking toward treatment and recovery.
“Judges say it’s really refreshing to have some insights so that they better understand the frustrations,” Woodworth said.
Freeing up resources
Now a nationwide and growing program, LEAD offers guidelines for cities that implement the program, but according to City Manager Heather Brooks, each city is allowed to adjust the program to best meet the needs of the community.
As Alamosa’s version of LEAD began to take shape, Brooks said she and other city leaders started to examine how many police resources were being used to arrest the same people on multiple occasions, often within hours of the first arrest.
“This use of our resources was a drag, so for us, if (LEAD) was a tool that would maybe start reducing that, and get it to where people aren’t offending because of the underlying issues that are driving them to that, then it would be a better use of our time,” Brooks said. “Not to mention the healing of your community that can happen through it as well.”
City leaders agree they’ve seen healing within the San Luis Valley, and according to Mayor Ty Coleman, it’s also helped build trust.
“Most people don’t care how much you know, until they know how much you care,” he said. “When you have a team like we have, they’re showing that they care by meeting people where they are. They’re showing that they care by building and establishing that trust — law enforcement, the DA’s office, our CRP team — everything that they do is showing that they’re caring by their actions.”
Brooks recognizes that not everyone in Alamosa approves of the LEAD program, with some feeling it allows criminals to avoid punishment.
“There are people who say, ‘If they did the crime, they need to do the time,’” she said. “This isn’t wiping their record clean … it’s a focus on the bigger picture: Putting them in jail isn’t getting us out of this.”
In fact, jails in the area are already experiencing extreme overcrowding. According to DA Willett, the jail in nearby Conajos County no longer accepts people with warrants from Municipal Court because it doesn’t have space for them, a problem many jails in the country are experiencing.
“You just can’t put everybody in jail. The sheriffs won’t have enough room,” Willett said. “We’ve been trying to arrest our way out of this problem for the last 30 years, and it has not worked.”
This story has been supported by the Solutions Journalism Network, solutionsjournalism.org. The next installment will explore obstacles that Alamosa city leaders have overcome.
