Warden, lawyers cite drugs, alcohol as factors
By Les Stewart
Lebanon Daily News
LEBANON, Pa. — Over and over, the stories sound identical.
Every Wednesday, Lebanon County judges listen to the details about the lives of offenders they are about to sentence.
The offenders dropped out of high school and never took the time to get a high-school diploma. They abused or are addicted to alcohol or drugs -- or both. Many don’t have jobs. Some have children. They have all seen the inside of the county prison.
Those who work in the criminal-justice field in Lebanon County say those are the keys that lead people back to the prison again and again. Some even make it all the way into a state institution, the next criminal step up.
“Some people come through the system once or twice, and they figure it out,” defense attorney Mark Schappell explained. “They get a taste of jail and figure that is not for them.”
But Schappell has other clients he has had to represent repeatedly on varying cases.
Although no figures are available for the county’s recidivism rate, prison warden Robert J. Karnes estimates that the figure for offenders returning to the lockup is in the high 30 percentile. That does not include offenders who are resentenced for violating the terms of their parole, he said. If those numbers were added, the figure would be similar to state-prison recidivism figures, the warden said.
By way of comparison, the recidivism rate in state prison was 46.3 percent in 2004, the most recent year for which numbers are available, according to a Department of Corrections report of recidivism rates between 199 and 2004.
“Criminal behavior is very complex,” Sally Barry, director of the county’s adult probation department, explained simply.
Barry said she still sees some of the same people in the system she saw when she began in the probation field 17 years ago. Now, she sees some of their children.
The root of the problem
One common thread among many repeat offenders is drug and alcohol addiction.
Lebanon County judges have often said that, if it weren’t for drugs and alcohol, the prison would be nearly empty.
“I don’t think I have one case right now that doesn’t involve alcohol or drugs to some extent, whether people commit the crime because they’re on drugs or under the influence of alcohol, or they’re doing it to get money to buy drugs,” defense attorney Elizabeth Judd said during a recent interview.
Barry, for one, said she is amazed that people who are told they cannot drink alcohol for six months or they’ll go to jail will show up smelling of alcohol for an appointment with their probation officer.
“When they come in here and don’t even know that they reek of alcohol, that’s a serious problem,” she said.
District Attorney Dave Arnold said he is not a psychologist, but he believes most repeat offenders have substance-abuse problems.
“That, in my perspective, is the absolute number-one factor that exists for the vast majority of the people who repeatedly go through the system.”
All in the family
Years ago, one of Barry’s mentors told her the difference between her clients and her was the way both sides handle problems.
“How we manage those problems comes back down to your family and the examples that were set for you by your family,” she said.
Barry said she heard on a radio program that Americans need to get back to their families, teach their children what integrity means, and respect themselves and others.
“When I heard that, I thought, ‘You’re exactly right,’” she recalled. “Not that educating on drugs isn’t important, but definitely teaching children, and people for that matter, integrity and self respect, is huge.
“Much of what you do in your life is learned behavior (from your family),” she added. “How do you expect those people to learn when they haven’t had a good example to begin with? And when you think about teaching someone -- when you have an 18- or 25- or 40-year-old person who this has been their life and there hasn’t been the right intervention or they weren’t ready for it.”
Arnold said he believes drug or alcohol problems can be traced to the substance abuser’s childhood.
“Frankly, I think it starts with kids when they are growing up, with their parenting or lack of parenting, or lack of personal responsibility, not being held accountable for their actions as they grow up,” the district attorney said. “I think that if we would all work on our own personal-accountability skills, I think we would be able to prevent problems before they occur versus trying to solve problems after they already have taken place.”
What works
Those involved in the county’s criminal-justice system praise the Renaissance Crossroads program, established in February 2001.
Renaissance Crossroads is a 34-month, substance-abuse-treatment program used as an alternative to a prison sentence for some nonviolent offenders. It combines individual counseling with the 12-step-treatment programs of Alcoholics Anonymous and Narcotics Anonymous.
The program has been funded annually with a $705,000 grant from the Pennsylvania Commission on Crime and Delinquency and is managed by the county’s adult-probation office, which contracts the counseling component from Pennsylvania Counseling Services.
Men and women sentenced to the program complete an in-patient period, living in a wing at South Lebanon Township’s Lebanon VA Medical Center, where they receive intensive counseling for their addictions. That period, which averages about a year, is followed by a term of house arrest and out-patient treatment that ends 22 months after sentencing. In the final 12 months, the offender is on supervised probation, but the treatment regimen is up to him or her.
In the past seven years, the program has admitted 108 people with a success rate of about 55 percent, case manager Mandy Newmaster said after a graduation ceremony in December for six men who completed the program.
Those who fail to walk the fine line prescribed in Renaissance Crossroads are sent to state prison to complete their sentences.
“I don’t think there’s any question that Crossroads participants, at least in the short term, have been far more likely to be successful than people who have not gone through the program,” Arnold explained.
The rehabilitation process doesn’t end when an offender leaves that type of program, Barry said. In the world outside of rehab, an offender needs a support system.
Taking responsibility
Karnes said he believes programs that stress accountability for a person’s own actions are the most beneficial to offenders. Programs such as Alcoholics Anonymous and Narcotics Anonymous stress that type of accountability, he said.
The most effective short-term programs for county-prison inmates are those that are faith-based, such as Jubilee Ministries, the warden said. Faith-based programs teach offenders they are held accountable for their actions.
The Teen Challenge program, with a facility in Rehrersburg, Berks County, is another faith-based recovery program that has reduced the recidivism rate for offenders, Schappell said. Offenders can also take advantage of programs at New Perspectives at White Deer Run in North Cornwall Township.
In recent months, Lebanon County has begun a DUI court program for second- and third-time drunken-driving offenders. Usually, those charged with second and third DUI offenses within a 10-year period face a mandatory term behind bars. But those accepted into this program are placed on probation instead of prison.
The program’s main components are treatment and supervision. Those accepted are required to attend 90 Alcoholics Anonymous or Narcotics Anonymous meetings during the first three months they are in the program, roughly one a day.
Barry said the Lebanon County Adult Probation office has changed its style of supervision so probation officers can spend more time in the community where offenders live and focus on what affects their lives.
“You can’t do that when you have somebody coming into your office once a month, and you’re just looking at them,” she said.
Copyright 2009 Lebanon Daily News