Local Courts Fight to Provide HOPE to The Community

For Summit County Common Pleas Court Judge Allison Breaux, it all started with one person.  A man, who could’ve got lost in the system after his life fell apart, but with a little extra attention and assistance was able to turn his life back around.

The man she was motivated by is named Carl.  Carl has had mental illness through his entire life.  He coped with it by volunteering to clean at a convenience store near him, which was owned by two brothers.  Carl cleaned and stocked shelves and in return, the brother who was in charge of the shift he came in for would make sure he was alright and taking his medications.

However, when the brothers swapped shifts, things changed.  The other brother wanted nothing to do with him.  He kicked Carl out and told him he wasn’t allowed to work there anymore.  After that, Carl’s condition quickly deteriorated.  He stopped taking his medication and within a couple months was charged with aggravated robbery after robbing a different convenience store at knife point.

When the case was brought to Breaux’s attention, she saw that he was extremely ill.  She attempted to have him screened for the mental health program in Summit County, but they rejected him.  He was then sent to North Coast behavioral institute, which, according to Breaux, is one of the last court-ordered mental health institutions in Ohio.  After his condition improved, he was able to enter the mental health program that he was originally screened for.

Now, Carl is much better and is a mainstay in Judge Breaux’s courtroom.  He has his license, volunteers with one of the mental health agencies in Akron and works for his neighbor, who provides the same sort of role that the first brother in the convenience store used to for him.

“I realized for folks who have mental illnesses, not everybody, but with the right medication and the right understanding of your illness, that you could be productive, stay out of jail, stay out of prison, stay out of hospitals, stop being arrested, et cetera,” said Breaux. “So I wanted to start this program.”

According to the National Alliance on Mental Illness, nearly 1 in 25 people live with a serious mental illness, and about 50% of those begin by the age of 14 with the number increasing to 75% by the age of 24.

After taking the bench in 2017 and also seeing Carl through the system, Breaux began to work on implementing her idea.  She gathered agencies in Summit County that dealt with mental illness and they all determined that there was a need for this program. However, there was something they didn’t agree on: the time it would take.

“I said, this is the program, this is what I want it took look like, and I want this to be up and running by the fall of 2018,” said Breaux. 

This declaration was met by a lot of skepticism. 

But it happened.

In September of 2018, Breaux and her staff were able to open HOPE court, the first felony mental health court in Summit County.  HOPE, which she says deals with healing, opportunity, progress and empowerment, is a 4-stage process, which is intended to take about two years, includes relentless monitoring and support on the part of Breaux and her staff, along with routine drug screenings and visits with the support staff.  Currently there are 16 people involved in the program, each of them trying to better themselves one step at a time. 

Jerry Craig, the executive director of the Akron ADM, believes this program has the potential to be extremely beneficial.

“We had one of the first mental health courts in the area for misdemeanors,” he said.  “What we were finding was that there was a lot of people who were committing low level felonies who could also benefit from court monitored treatment like this.

“The goals are always to find opportunities to intercept people from criminal justice and take them into treatment when it is the most appropriate option, and this is another way to help us do that.”

However, in order for the program to work for the participants, they must fully commit.  Once they do, Breaux and her staff are all in as well.

“I try to remind them we are not here to screw you, we are here to help you,” she said. “You have a whole team, like turn around and look at your team, if you’re struggling, we want you to come to us, not run from us.”

Although a few of the participants have encountered setbacks, including failed drug screenings and missed appointments, the overall reaction to the program thus far has been a positive one.  The court was even certified by the Ohio Supreme Court a few weeks ago.

Summit county is also home to several other specialized dockets including valor court, for veterans, reentry court, domestic relations court and drug court.

While Breaux’s HOPE court is still in its first year, in Portage County, Judge Doherty is the proud owner of a seasoned HOPE court of her own, except hers is for people battling drug problems.

At the same time that Doherty ran for judge in 2014, the opiate epidemic began to really rear its ugly head.  The epidemic touched Doherty personally when her daughter, who was coaching high school cheerleading, lost two of her girls to heroin overdoses.

“They were kids that you would have never along the way thought they’re going to end up as a statistic in this heroin epidemic,” said Doherty.

According to the American Addiction Centers, 19.7 million adults in America struggled with substance abuse in 2017.  The requirement to be considered an adult for this survey was to be 12 years old.

While campaigning for judge, Doherty felt it was extremely important to have a court tailored to help the people who were struggling to turn their lives around.

“I felt very strongly that this county needed a drug court needed a focus on individuals who were going through the court system, who had the desire, wanted to change their life, wanted to not end up in a cemetery,” she said.

Once she was elected in 2015, Doherty got to work.  She began to run her drug court, choosing certain defendants who she felt would benefit greatly from a program like this.  For about two years, she ran the court without recognition from the Ohio Supreme Court.  However, in early 2017, that recognition came.  Along with the recognition, came guidance, which Doherty says was very helpful.

On average, Doherty says she handles about 600 criminal cases a year; she estimates about 85% of those to be drug related.

“It’s not always the kids who have grown up in a bad situation where drugs were their whole life and that’s all they knew,” Doherty says.  “Unfortunately, it has become a situation where we have to look for it because it hides in plain sight.”

Like Breaux’s program, Doherty’s HOPE court is designed to provide the needed support and resources to the participants.  Both are four stages, but Doherty’s program takes 16 months, as opposed to the two years for Breaux’s program.

Each step is estimated to take approximately 4 months.  At first, the program is pretty intensive, calling for participants to attend a multitude of meetings per week, including one with Doherty.  As they navigate the process, the goal is for them to become more independent, however that isn’t always the case.

“It’s a very structured program and not everyone moves at the same pace,” said Doherty.  “They have setbacks, they have relapses.”

Despite the setbacks everyone who is involved in the program, appreciates the support and dedication that Doherty and her staff shows. When new people are introduced into drug court, Doherty will have them meet the other members, who will often offer the same advice: stick with the program because they will know if you slip up.

Doherty calls the participants her children, all who have had their own personal struggles but have overcome them and found the help they needed.  While she is proud of the work that she has done through drug court, she is even more proud of her kids and their success. 

“Their stories are just varied from they grew up with addicts as parents and that’s all they knew to growing up in extreme wealth and having everything at their fingers tips and still ending up in the same place with a needle in their arm,” she said. “So, their stories are different, but unfortunately they ended up in the same place but hopefully they can forge ahead and that’s what they’re doing.”