A pilot program at the Farmington-based DWI Treatment Facility has been developed to address challenges in sentencing “unhoused intoxicated individuals.”
This was told to the San Juan County Commission by Alternative Sentencing Department Administrator Jennifer Mitchell.
The program will provide the DWI Treatment Facility as a sentencing option for repeat offenders, who fail to complete outpatient treatment at Totah Behavioral Health’s Joint Intervention Program, Mitchell said.
At issue are individuals who are charged at the municipal level with alcohol-related crimes, but rarely complete outpatient treatment, Mitchell said.
When the “person fails to complete it, there hasn’t been a structured secure treatment option to fall back on,” Mitchell said. “That person basically cycles back through the court system.”
The judge has two choices with regards to sentencing that person – send them back to outpatient treatment or put them in jail, Mitchell said.
Farmington Police Chief Steve Hebbe told the Tri-City Record that the Joint Intervention Program, or JIP, is “more free flowing. They can leave the premises.”
“When people don’t come back, or they just walk away from the program, we go and get a warrant,” Hebbe said. “Sometimes they get sent back to it. Sometimes repeatedly. It’s a cycle we’re trying to break.”
In the DWI Treatment Facility, individuals are held for 28 days and receive inpatient treatment for their addiction, Hebbe said.
Under the pilot program, “if you are not compliant, walking away, we will go back to the judge,” Hebbe said. “Some of these people who are not participating and walking away will be sentenced to the 28-day facility.”
There they will “get alcohol treatment” to address the “persistent problem in Farmington” of unhoused inebriated individuals violating the law with little to no consequences, Hebbe said.
“It’s not effective if you are not participating,” Hebbe said, adding under this new program, “those who make the decision to leave JIP, they don’t get off scot-free.”
Hebbe, along with Municipal Judge Robert Miller, brought the idea to San Juan County’s Alternative Sentencing Division, and also to Totah Behavioral Health, which is operated by Presbyterian Medical Services. The entities worked together to develop a memorandum of understanding to utilize the 28-day program for sentencing.
“The infrastructure, clinical staff and the treatment model we’ve built are well suited to serve a small carefully screened group of additional individuals, specifically those non-DWI municipal defendants, who weren’t able to succeed in a non-secured treatment environment and need something more structured,” Mitchell said.
The program will be capped at five individuals, who have “documentation of a noncompletion” in JIP, Mitchell said.
“San Juan County and the Alternative Sentencing Division retains full discretion over eligibility, admission and space availability just as we do with our DWI population,” Mitchell said. “We’re not changing our clinical model or our screening standards, we’re simply extending eligibility in a very limited way to this new population.”
Under the MOU, the city of Farmington will pay the county $3,916 for each individual who completes the program. There will be a prorated daily rate of $139.86 for those who do not complete the 28-day program, Mitchell said.
“All of our existing admission criteria remain fully in effect and unchanged, and either party will have the ability to terminate the agreement for convenience with 30 days written notice,” Mitchell said, adding this gives the county “an easy off ramp in case the pilot doesn’t perform as we expect it to.”
The program will begin Aug. 1 and Mitchell said her department will carefully track the outcomes throughout the pilot period, “so we have solid information to use for evaluation of efficacy that will inform whether or not the partnership should continue, expand or end.”