Edmonton drug court caught in numbers game

Tanya Simmons knows her numbers.

• 1,155. That's how many days she has spent in jail.
• 43. That's how many times she was arrested.
• 125. That's how many charges she faced, over the years.

"I think I only have 79 convictions," she said, as ifcounting something much more pedestrian

Here's another number.

• 27. As in, days from now.

That's when she'll graduate, not from college or university, but from drug court, the program she credits with saving her from the cycle of crime and punishment that, for years, was the only life she knew.

Now that she's found a new path, she's worried the program that helped her may not be there for the next person who needs it. For the next addict who wants to break that cycle.

The court, administered by the John Howard Society, has been running in Edmonton for the past nine years. The program cost $583,000 last year. The money came from the federal government and was channeled through the province.

Drug court isn't easy. It takes a lot of discipline. You have to really want to change.- TanyaSimmons, drug court attendee

Calgary has its own drug court, though that program is provincially funded. It cost $640,000 last year.

The federal government recently announced a commitment of $500,000 to fund drug courts in Alberta. But that money would have to be split between Edmonton and Calgary.

Current funding in Edmonton runs out at the end of the fiscal year, on March 31, 2015. Alberta Justice has said it won't continue to fund the court under the present model, and hasn't committed any money to drug courts beyond that date.

The funding model may sound complicated, but the program itself is rather simple. Some people charged with drug-related offences can be channeled into drug court, where they spend eight to 18 months in an intensive program that includes random drug tests, community service work, and intensive therapy.

"Drug court isn't easy," said Simmons. "It takes a lot of discipline. You have to really want to change."

Started doing drugs part time

Simmons started doing drugs "part time" when she was a teenager. Just weekend parties. No big deal.

"One day I woke up and I was doing drugs for a different reason," she said. "I'm not sure how or why it happened. Just I woke up one day, and it wasn't just for fun anymore."

Drugs took over her life. Feeding her habit took all her time. She couldn't hold down a job, so she turned to crime to get the money she needed.

She first went to jail in July 2006. The minute she got out

"It's a revolving door," she said. "And everyone in there (jail) is the same people, all the time. You just go and you come back. It's always, 'see you in a week,' and it's funny, but it's really not."

She needed drugs, so she needed the money buy them. Car theft, fraud, possession, trafficking. Crime after crime, arrest after arrest. Trial after trial. Along the way, those 79 convictions and those 1,155 days behind bars.

After her most recent arrest, her lawyer told her she could do more with her life than spend much of it in jail cells and courtrooms. When the lawyer suggested drug court, Simmons was ready.

"Some people just do it to get out of jail," she said. "I think a lot of those people are weeded out right away. They're gone already. There's only a few of us left in the group that I was in."

She went through something called Matrix, an intensive outpatient treatment program. For months she lived in a halfway house with a nightly curfew 9:30 p.m. for a long time, then 10:30 p.m. She showed up each week at drug court, where clients are screened to make sure they stay clean. She saw a psychologist once a week, at first, then once every two weeks.

• On mobile? Listen to Tanya Simmons describe her experience here

Sober for18 months

She has been sober now for 18 months. She has a job. Actually, two jobs. She has reconnected with her family, including her 20-year-old son.

"I am one of the fortunate ones," she said. "I don't think, without this program, I would be here today. I wouldn't be where I am. I wouldn't have gone to school. I wouldn't have quit the lifestyle. I needed that time to work on myself, in a safe environment.

That safe environment may not be there much longer. Grace Froese, the program's executive director, is responsible for the treatment portion of drug court. With the province unwilling to make a funding commitment beyond March 31, she has had to give her five staff members their notices. Those workers are already looking for other jobs.

Over the past nine years, Edmonton's drug court has taken on more than 300 clients. By next week, 98 people will have graduated. The rest dropped out, failed, cycled back into the court system.

Froese said clients who are in the program right now have questions about the future, questions no one can answer. Those who've been involved for months may be OK, she said. Those who started the program recently may be at higher risk for returning to drugs and crime if the program is pulled out from under them.

Michelle Davio, spokesperson for the Justice department, said provincial funding is still being decided as the Conservative government works on its upcoming budget.

• Debate heats up around safe-injection sites proposed in Edmonton

"We are working with stakeholders and the provincial court to develop a new service delivery model that supports the principles of drug treatment courts," Davio said in an email. "For this program, as with other programs and services, we have to be mindful of current provincial revenue challenges as important funding decisions are made."

Cheaper than jail

NDP Leader Rachel Notley said the people trying to save taxpayers' money will end up spending much more, somewhere else, if the drug court is shut down.

"What's clear to me is that this program is one that actually gets to the root of a really serious problem in our community," she said. "That is, that some people with addictions problems will rotate through the justice system, in the most expensive as well as destructive way possible. In the absence of having a meaningful effort made to help them with their problem."

It would cost Alberta far less to fund the drug court than to investigate all the crimes these addicts commit, to catch them and charge them, to put them in Remand, to put them on trial, to convict them and send them off to jail, over and over again.

"Sometimes, investment in public services is not some kind of luxury," Notley said. "It's actually something that saves money."

Froese is confident that something will replace the current drug court. But she has no idea what it will look like, how much funding it will get, or how many people it will help.

Without drug court, Simmons knows exactly where she would be today.

"I'd be in a federal jail right now," she said. "Doing my time, waiting to get out."

Instead, she's waiting for Feb. 4. The day she will officially graduate from the program. A day that just happens to be her mother's birthday.