Healing at-risk offenders Faced with a growing group of heroin users, Gov. Larry Hogan sought a new solution. Hogan organized a task force which called for more treatment for addicts both while in prison and after they are released—a time of increased relapse and overdose vulnerability, according to the Sun. “I think they’ve found jail doesn’t help,” Sen. Katherine Klausmeier, a participant on Gov. Hogan’s task force, says to the Baltimore Sun. “They come out worse than when they went in.”
LEAD is part of a state- and nation-wide reevaluation of the current approach of administering drug abusers into the criminal justice system. Instead, the program aims to divert low-level drug and prostitution offenders with substance abuse problems into community-based treatment and support services, like housing, job training and mental health support, according to the Baltimore Sun. Similar to alternative approaches around the country, LEAD includes access to Drug Court. Drug Court, according to the National Association of Drug Court Professionals (NADCP), allows for an eligible drug-
important because it allows those who have addiction problems to not have the arrest on their record or go through the revolving door of the criminal justice system.” addicted person to be sent to Drug Court instead of the traditional justice system case processing. Drug Courts keep individuals in treatment long enough for it to work, writes the NADCP, while supervising the offenders closely. “What is unusual about this program is that there is no arrest at all,” says Diana Morris, director of Open Society Institute-Baltimore, to the Baltimore Sun. “That’s
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