As you may know, May is National Drug Court Awareness month. As a new member of Judge Joyce Kimbler’s Drug Court Team, I wanted to take this opportunity to educate readers on the benefit to having drug courts in our community.

Historically, Common Pleas Courts were there to mete out punishments for crimes without taking into consideration the motivation behind why the crime was committed in the first place.

In the 1980s, while serving as a young detective in a west central Florida county, I saw the ravages of the “crack cocaine” epidemic, and the countless number of people affected by it. Crime rates soared, neighborhoods were decimated, and a number of people lost their lives to the addiction. At that time the effort was not there to combat that problem, and law enforcement members were left to their own devices to mop up after the damage occurred.

When it was realized we were in the throes of an opiate epidemic, and scores of people were dying as a result, people and organizations came together to first bring awareness to the problem, and then began devising ways to fight it. Although drug courts were in place well before the opiate epidemic began, they have now adapted and molded their processes to better guide those in addiction, making their communities safer as a result.

Although I always knew we had drug courts, I wasn’t totally aware of what they do and how many resources that are brought to bear to ensure accountability and to enable a person addicted to drugs and alcohol to get treatment.

We have one drug court and one early intervention program in our county; Judge Joyce Kimbler and Judge Christopher Collier preside over those courts. In Judge Kimbler’s court, the team is comprised of a variety of resources to include adult probation, a clinical director, a criminal defense lawyer, a county prosecutor, and representatives for two treatment resources: LCADA, and Solutions Behavioral Healthcare. There is also a peer recovery coach, who ensures those participating in the program stay on the road to recovery.

Accountability, consequences and recovery are the driving force in these programs. It is not the attitude of the court that because a person is addicted to a substance, he or she is immune to the consequences of their actions. They do, however, recognize that there is a motivation behind the actions of a person who commits crimes to satisfy their drug addiction. The recovery piece of this process is just as important as the accountability piece. This greatly impacts the recidivism rate, which is to say, the courts are not seeing the same people over and over again.

I would imagine that participation in a drug court program could be difficult and challenging because of the rules and expectations that are placed on a person, but I also think owning up to one’s mistakes while pursuing a path to recovery is an important part of that recovery. I’ve seen the end result of this process and it is remarkable. To see a person go from the depths of addiction and what comes with it to becoming good citizens who work full-time jobs, care for their families, and then give back to their communities through work with those still suffering from addiction is an awesome sight to behold.