Street Roots • June 30-July 6, 2017
News
Page 10
Eugene Reentry Court challenges ‘backward’ federal policy
The innovative program
serves as a support group
to help drug offenders
get back on track
BY JONATHAN STULL
C O N T R IB U T IN G W R IT E R
EUGENE — U.S. District Judge Ann
Aiken hands James Brown his certificate of
graduation and announces that she has
signed the order to commute his
supervision. In July, he and a fellow graduate
will be free men, and the room at the Wayne
L. Morse U.S. Courthouse erupts in
applause. A full-time salesman at his printing
company and a former methamphetamine
addict, Brown falls quiet while the applause
subsides. Nearly 20 years after his first
arrest he is clean, he has found a job he
enjoys, he has a stable and healthy life, and
he has graduated from the Eugene Re-entry
Court.
But were it up to the federal
administration, Brown wouldn’t be here.
In a memo in May, Attorney General Jeff
Sessions ordered federal prosecutors to seek
the strongest charges in cases they
prosecute. The order is a reversal of former
Attorney General Eric Holder’s Obama-era
policy that federal prosecutors seek the
maximum sentences for only the most
serious drug-related offenses, like high-
volume trafficking and violent crime.
Aiken described the policy as insane.
“I consider it legal malpractice,” she said,
“to treat addiction as anything other than a
mental health issue.”
Brown is a Re-entry Court success, but his
path was long and troubled. A native of
Springfield, he began injecting
methamphetamine in 1998 to cope with the
death of two friends who were killed at
gunpoint.
“I lost it,” Brown said. “I got messed up
on meth.”
Almost immediately, the arrests began to
accumulate. By his count he had more than
pedbple’s
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P H O T O BY J O N A T H A N STULL
James Brown is a graduate of the Eugene Re-entry Court.
70 in three months - at one point including
the theft of a federal marshal’s computer
and car stereo. He was arrested by federal
law enforcement in November 1998 and
sentenced to six years in the Oregon State
Penitentiary in Salem.
Brown was released after three years, but
he relapsed 18 months later. Charged with a
felony firearm offense, he negotiated a
minimum sentence of 15 years in the U.S.
Penitentiary in Victorville, Calif. Under
Sessions’ policy, he might have served life in
prison.
“It’s a serious step backward,” said
Dwight Holton, former federal prosecutor
and CEO of Lines for Life, a regional
nonprofit based in Portland that offers crisis
lines to offenders.
Mandatory minimum sentences should
not be a blanket policy, he said, but rather
criminal justice should incorporate mental
health treatment and preventive measures,
such as technology, in addition to the arrest
and prosecution of high-level drug offenses.
“To disregard the first two disregards
everything we’ve learned in the past two
decades,” Holton said. “Attorney General
Sessions has chosen the single-most-
expensive way to address the drug problem.”
Resources are already spread thin. A
Portland probation officer works 16-hour
days to keep up with his or her caseload.
In Eugene, the caseload is overwhelming,
said Lynn Perdue, outgoing supervising
probation officer, with each of the four
officers managing up to 160 cases. According
to a 2012 report by the Vera Institute of
Justice, the average per-inmate cost of
incarceration nationwide was $31,286. Post
parole supervision that includes mental
health treatment and preventive measures
cuts that cost by more than 87 percent,
according to a 2017 Re-Entry Symposium
report.
Meanwhile, innovation abounds. Re-entry
Court, one of several programs across the
country and the second of its kind, was
designed to help drug offenders get back on
their feet. Re-entry Court is, in essence, a
support group. With the help of peers and
professionals, offenders who remain drug
free for a year and complete hours of
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service, among other tasks, shave a year
from their supervised release - just like
Brown.
There are re-entry programs like this
across the country. Eugene’s Re-entry Court,
however, is different. Program participants
gather in a conference room, not a
courtroom, with Aiken, Probation Officer
Todd Cantamessa and a collection of others,
including federal prosecutors, public
defenders and nonprofit representatives.
Like family, offenders and supervisors
tease one another and discuss their
struggles in an open and transparent
environment. Items to address on the
agenda: How do I handle a cop who makes a
mistake when he pulls me over? How should
I discipline my child when they talk about
bringing weapons to school? How do I
connect with my daughter? How should I
approach a potential employer about finding
a job?
The overall effectiveness of re-entry
programs like the one in Eugene is
uncertain, but initial reports show promise.
Perdue, who will retire this year, estimated
that in Eugene, seven of 10 program
participants graduate. The Re-entry
Symposium report suggests that the
graduation rate and the termination rate
have increased and decreased by 20 percent
respectively. A formal internal review of
Eugene’s Re-entry Court is scheduled for
this summer.
One thing is certain: The re-entry program
helped Brown get to where he is today. After
his release in 2016, Brown got to work.
“I hit the ground running. Job in two
weeks. Driver’s license in two weeks.
Housing in three weeks. I haven’t stopped,”
he said.
At 40 years old, he’s in a hurry to catch
up.
“I just bust my butt,” he said.
But when his mother died shortly after his
release, he had no one else to turn to. Alone
and on supervised release, Brown joined the
program.
He didn’t need much from the program,
he said. He just needed support.
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