Behind the celebration of the 20th anniversary of the McLean County Drug Court program is numerous stories of “lives changed forever,” according to one judge of the program.
Judges, attorneys, probation officers, treatment providers, graduates and current participants of the program gathered to mark the occasion during a celebration Thursday afternoon at Western Avenue Community Center.
One of the drug court's 200 graduates is Ashley Demling. She graduated from the program this August.
“At first, I wasn’t going to take drug court, and then the state’s attorney recommended that I took it, and I did,” she said, reflecting on her journey to the program. “It was a rough journey from the beginning. I fought against going into inpatient. I didn’t want to do recovery.”
Like many clients in the program, Demling was faced with the option of either prison time or participation.
“And at the time, I was so miserable in addiction that I wanted something different. I wanted my life to change and I wanted something better, so I took the opportunity and I also had a couple spiritual awakenings,” Demling said.
Demling said as she transitions to a graduate of the program, she urges anyone on the fence themselves to believe in themselves and "do the hard things."
“If I wouldn’t have ever got drug court, I would not be clean today. I wouldn’t be married; I would have never met my husband,” said Demling. “I wouldn’t have a horse, my dream animal. I wouldn’t be a farmer, like I wouldn’t have the job that I’ve always dreamed of.”
Normally, McLean County's courtrooms would be in full operation during the Thursday afternoon party, which corresponds with the weekly meeting time of the drug court. Operations halted so everyone could enjoy the celebration, with several judges and court administrators among those who were present.
A team approach
Judge Scott Kording presides over the drug court program, the head of an extensive team working to bring the clients into recovery.
“What we do is we hold them accountable for changing their lives, changing their behavior,” he said. “I think what’s most effective is that through a multidisciplinary team approach, we are able to target a program for each individual client, depending on where he or she is in life.”
Each client will have as many as 20 people ready to help them including judges, prosecutors, defense attorneys, probation and sworn officers and recovery treatment provider Chestnut Health Systems.
“We love our clients. Now, we have to have hard conversations with them sometimes, but we’ll hold them accountable,” Kording said. “We’re really trying to avoid the use of incarceration as a remedy and this model, based on a national model, an evidence-based model, works pretty well.”
The trust built with clients comes from a lot of research, according to Kording, a former defense attorney prior to becoming a judge.
“When we have drug court hearings in the courtroom on Thursday afternoons at 2:30 p.m., it’s not the judge up on the bench in a row where all the talking is done by the lawyers,” he said. “We talk directly, have good conversations. And so we try to help them understand that building a rapport with one or more of our drug court team members is important.”
Suzanne Montoya is the director of McLean County Court Services, overseeing probation for the drug court. She explained it differs from traditional probation, namely from the team dynamic.
“There is an entire team that staffs cases and decides what types of sanctions or incentives will be offered to the clients,” she said. “There’s also phases within the drug court program which differs from regular probation and it’s just an excellent program. I really appreciate the time and the energy that all the team members bring…”
Those incentives can be small things like a gift card or they can be more intangible like praise and acknowledgement from every team member.
Kording said some clients have told him that, simply put, serving prison time would have been easier. Montoya agreed with the sentiment, but she said graduates frequently note that the struggle was worth it.
McLean County Public Defender Ron Lewis said the county's drug court has make a positive impact on many of the people whose files cross his desk. Of the program's 200 graduates, more than half have have gone on to have no additional convictions in McLean County.
“We don’t want to have to open new files on people if we don’t have to and it’s a joy to see people be rehabilitated from whatever situation brought them there,” he said.
Lewis said by the end of the program, clients — the term used for defendants enrolled in the program — have a more positive perception of the legal process.
“It’s really something to work through with clients to get them into a system [when] they may be used to the revolving door of jail…” he said. “And to essentially break that cycle and have examples of showing how breaking that cycle really pays off for not only them but the entire system.”
Lewis said it helps the entire community when clients hold steady jobs, remain with their families and find stable housing through following the program.
Rehabilitation, not punishment
George Woodworth is another graduate of the drug court. Now, he’s turned his firsthand experience around to work as a peer recovery support specialist with McLean County's Center for Human Services.
“[Drug court] is a great example of people breaking those barriers down and trusting a system that we were all brought up not to trust,” he said.
With a group of people wanting to help meeting those who need help, Woodworth said the program works off of the chance to be better.
“If you’re sitting here in drug court, you know how bad it can get, so why not just give it a shot?” Woodworth said.
“I actually am a recovery coach because of a recovery coach that I met in treatment court,” he said. “He picked me up and took me to the Oxford House and it was somebody that I had known from lived experience. It was somebody that I’d known had gone through the system.”
Working with others like him is what “helped the pieces click” for Woodworth.
A plan for rehabilitation, not punishment, was the goal of the program from its start and a core tenant of a problem-solving court. That’s exactly what retired judge Elizabeth Robb wanted when she got the ball rolling on bringing one to McLean County.
Before she became one of the key figures to establish the drug court in McLean County, Robb was chief judge of the 11th Judicial Circuit. At a meeting of other chief judges, the new idea seemed attractive to her.
“Drug courts were kind of a new thing, particularly in Illinois. They’d been established first in Miami, Florida, about 20 years before we did,” she said.
What the courts depend on is research about what the most effective treatment is for helping clients recover. Robb said if a court can first understand what led a person to their criminal offense and/or substance use disorder, they have a much better experience treating them.
She wanted to bring that home to the county.
“A lot of times if they go to prison, it’s not addressed. And even if they spend time in the local jail, those issues are not addressed,” she said. “It was a way to provide support to folks who needed substance use treatment, who needed education, who needed family support. It preserves for our community folks who can offer their time and talent and be productive citizens.”
Robb said even just recently at the farmers market, a man she did not recognize came up and told her, “Judge Robb, you saved my life.”
She said it was just one example of how impactful the program is.
Another example is how the drug court opened the door for other problem-solving courts. The county now has diversion programs serving veterans, families struggling with addiction and people with mental illness. The county is exploring an additional problem-solving court for emerging adults.
“There’s a long time understanding that McLean County has worked together well [and] is now a leader in developing these innovative programs that support the justice system and support the communities,” said Robb.
Surely, members and supporters of the drug court would like to see it go on for another 20 years and beyond. Kording said to do that the court will continue to depend on financial support and scientific findings about substance use treatment.
