For 25 years, Rochester has had a drug court that handled non-violent defendants with drug addictions. But the screening process to get in the program took so long that victims of the new opioid epidemic often died of ovedoses before they could get into treatment. Enter Monroe County Opioid Court, designed to fix that problem and save lives.
Opioid drug defendants would often overdose and die as soon as they got out of jail. To fix that, Sheriff Todd Baxter says the Opioid Court model screens them while they’re still jail inmates. Or as Supervising Judge John DeMarco puts it “while we have their attention.”
Those 10 to 20 inmates a week deemed more a danger to themselves than society are put immediately into drug treatment. The model is treatment first – trial second. The defendants have to check in with the judge every day, some of them in person. Once they’re stabilized and not likely to die of overdose, they go to trial on the original charge. The costs are being covered by a $1.8 million federal grant.
Officials say violent felons aren’t allowed into the program.