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In a state with the nation’s highest incarceration rate, local prosecutors are exploring new programs to give some defendants opportunities to avoid jail or prison, while still ensuring that those who require prison time receive it.
District attorneys from Terrebonne, Lafourche and other jurisdictions along with some of their top staff members attended a weeklong conference in Pensacola last month where nationally recognized experts shared their ideas, and prosecutors focused on what has worked and what has not in their jurisdictions.
“We talked about a resurgence in diversion programs nationally,” said Kevin Guidry, operations administrator for Terrebonne Parish District Attorney Joe Waitz Jr.
Guidry is president of Professionals In Pre-Trial Services, a national consortium of justice system administrators interested in developing and maintaining diversion programs. Guidry skippered this year’s conference, the 34th in the group’s history.
With 893 out of every 100,000 Louisiana residents in state or federal lock-ups, Louisiana holds the highest state incarceration rank per capita.
Attempts for passage of de-criminalization measures in the state Legislature have met mixed responses. Some politicians’ fear being branded as “soft on crime.”
Data and the practices generating them discussed at the program, attendees said, gave clear indications that pre-trial alternatives can lower not just the cold number of people ending up behind bars, but cut down drastically on recidivism.
Such options are relatively easy for Louisiana prosecutors to put in place. The state constitution allows the state’s prosecutors the option, essentially, of prosecuting whom they choose, when they choose and how they choose with some few exceptions. That unique provision gives Louisiana district attorneys tremendous power, but also generous opportunities for discretion.
Lafourche Parish District Attorney Camille Morvant II attended this year’s conference for the first time. It provided affirmation, he said, for directions his office has already taken.
“Jail is not the answer for all the people we deal with as district attorneys,” Morvant said. “We use diversion as a tool.”
Morvant said a key element of his administration has traditionally been drawing the line between career criminals and one-time offenders who have committed low-level crimes.
Morvant’s intervention program is used primarily for misdemeanors and in some rare instances for low-grade felonies.
Assistants determine which pending cases involve good candidates, in most cases first-time offenders.
The candidate’s court date is adjourned for 90 days, which is enough time for him or her to be registered into the program and meet initial participation requirements.
If all goes well, the second court date is adjourned indefinitely, and once the period of probation is completed, with costs, fines restitution or other requirements met, the case is dismissed.
Requirements can include attendance at 12-step meetings, anger management courses and other proactive measures.
The benefit for the defendant is primarily that there is no record left behind, as well as no incarceration if the rules are followed. The benefit for society, prosecutors say, is no incarceration if the rules are followed, and the ability to keep a person who had a lapse in judgment employed and viable.
Prosecutors say more options for dealing with offenders exist than ever before. But there are limitations to what can be done.
One of the biggest is money.
Most criminal defendants, Morvant notes, are at the lower end of the economic ladder.
Fines and fees already put a dent into their budgets. Paying for more elaborate diversion options can make justice outcome options untenable for many.
Morvant notes that his own office only has so much money to go around. But he is exploring with his staff what more can be done.
In Terrebonne Parish, one of the greater benefits has been licensing of the District Attorney’s Office itself as a substance abuse treatment provider through the Louisiana Department of Health and Hospitals.
That means specially trained in-house employees can handle outpatient treatment programs.
Guidry is looking forward to his office and others having diversion personnel certified as diversion specialists. It will provide more options for grants and funding, he said, as well give a better level of service to residents.
While there is necessarily a punitive aspect to diversion programs, Guidry said, a vital component is the educational aspect.
Boating safety offenders can take a course to correct their knowledge base; traffic offenders can take safe driving course. The potential for other options, Guidry said, is only limited by imagination and practicality.
He and other prosecutors note that diversion should not be confused with drug courts or DWI courts, which serve a different purpose.
Drug court – Lafourche has one as well – takes someone whose offense is somehow related to drug use and perhaps the need to fuel a habit, through acts such as theft, and permit the person to enter a guilty plea.
Rather than being sentenced to time, the offender has an opportunity to be placed under the jurisdiction of drug court and perform the tasks that are required of them to graduate from that program.
If the person fails through non-attendance or other issues such as a new arrest, they are sentenced to the time they already would have served had they never entered drug court.
As he continues his work for Waitz, Guidry is also busy with planning next year’s conference, to give prosecutors, judges and others as full a toolkit as possible to work with trending justice issues relating to diversion.
This year’s conference included talks on “Motivational Interviewing,” coping with the increased illicit use of prescription drugs, which has been called the “new crack cocaine” and how to best handle drugged drivers.
District attorneys from across southeast Louisiana gathered in Pensacola, Florida, last month for the Professionals in Pre-Trial Services Association’s annual conference. Terrebonne District Attorney Joe Waitz Jr. (pictured second from left) and Lafourche DA Cam Morvant attended.
