Pubdate: Sat, 19 Jan 2002 Source: Press, The (New Zealand) Copyright: 2002 The Christchurch Press Company Ltd. Contact: http://www.press.co.nz/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/349 Author: Yvonne Martin HIGH EXPECTATIONS Drug Courts Alcohol and drugs are fuelling youth crime in Christchurch. One judge's vision of tackling the problem through a special drug court is about to become a reality. Yvonne Martin reports. A chance encounter between a Nelson judge and a young heroin addict two years ago has inspired a bold plan for young offenders to shake their drug ties. In mid-1999, at a Melbourne treatment centre, Judge John Walker met a 15-year-old boy whose body was ravaged by years of heroin addiction. He was told by a resident drug counsellor that the youth was unlikely to survive another month. The lad was barely-living proof for Walker that New Zealand had to tackle its drug problems early. "The addiction to heroin was so debilitating, he was really a walking dead," he says. He does not know what has happened to the youth but the memory of his encounter still troubles him. Walker's travels to see how other countries manage drug problems, and high proportions of drug-dependent offenders here, have led to a new court for youths with alcohol and drug addictions. Based on similar courts in the United States, Australia, and the United Kingdom, the Youth Drug Court will be launched in Christchurch on March 14. The one-year pilot will target juvenile offenders who, by 15 to 17, have committed many crimes to support their habits, mainly alcohol and cannabis. The treatment-based drug court is a first for New Zealand, and one of the first concepts to emerge from a ministerial task force looking at reducing youth crime. The group's blueprint for addressing youth offending, which rose 55 per cent in the '90s, is expected to be released by Justice Minister Phil Goff next month. If the new court works, it will divert youth recidivists from their criminal apprenticeships of looting and lying. Where possible, it will get them back into education. It will hopefully reduce levels of reoffending (an estimated 80 per cent of offenders have drug dependencies), turn young lives around and be introduced nationally as a model. But it is not an easy time to be pushing through such a change, especially with the crippled state of Canterbury's mental health services. Walker recognises that to succeed, the pilot will need immediate access to good treatment programmes, something lacking in Christchurch and about to get worse with the imminent closure of Queen Mary Hospital's youth residential programme at Hanmer Springs - the only one in the region. To work, the pilot will also need at-court drug clinicians to assess youths, another factor thrown into doubt by the crisis at Hillmorton Hospital, which will affect its Youth Speciality Services. Despite the problems, Walker is forging ahead because they are not strong enough reasons to abort the trial. Besides, if the pilot highlights gaps in youth services, then that is another useful outcome, he says. Christchurch was chosen for the pilot because, unlike other cities, it has only one youth court. Greater Wellington, for example, with a similar population, has four. Each Friday up to 55 youths are pushed through the Christchurch Youth Court's revolving doors, some for serious adult crimes. Just this week a 16-year-old was biding time in the police cells, facing charges of rape, aggravated robbery, sexual violation, indecent assault, and abduction. A scoping exercise by the Ministry of Justice in November identified plenty of potential candidates for the court, but the pilot will be kept to about 50 youths in the first year. Walker has been a district court and youth court judge for seven years, sharing the Nelson-Blenheim circuit with a second judge. Before that, he was a barrister in Wellington, specialising in medical cases. He was born in Donaghadee, a fishing village on the east coast of Northern Ireland, to a grocer father and a mother who juggled three children with work as a domestic servant. The pioneering family emigrated to New Zealand to start life anew when Walker was aged three. "It was a brave thing for parents to do from a small fishing village, to get on a ship and come to New Zealand," he says. "Anything I do that might be a bit frightening or intimidating is nothing compared to what they must have gone through." Until now the efforts of judges like Walker in tackling youth problems have been hampered by the lack of places available on treatment programmes. Inevitably, the problem comes back to funding and who pays. "The interdepartmental debate as to the source of funding - Corrections saying that it is a health issue, Child, Youth and Family Services saying that it is a health issue, and vice versa - is a paralysing debate," he says. For the pilot, government departments have agreed to allocate staff, such as CYFS providing a youth justice co-ordinator and the police a prosecutor. A Justice official will monitor the drug court and its effect on youth reoffending. "There is a very large commitment of resource. I have no idea what the total bill is," says Walker. (The ministry was similarly unable to quote costings.) "I have a firm view that whatever you spend on these people is a fraction of what it costs the country not to deal with it effectively in terms of what it costs victims of continual offending, what it costs to imprison them, the costs of family breakup. It just goes on and on." Walker, who returns to Wellington to live in June, will commute to Christchurch every second Thursday to be the court's sole judge. Continuity of judges to monitor progress and build relationships with the drug team is crucial, he says. But that still leaves the prickly problem of no residential treatment programme to send young addicts away from friends and factors influencing their offending. "There are programmes in the North Island but it is not ideal because you get kids that are reluctant to go far away," says Walker. "The ideal would be a residential treatment programme in Christchurch, certainly in the South Island." He is unaware at this stage how Hillmorton's difficulties will affect drug clinicians' assessment of drug court offenders. Similar problems over resources have struck United Kingdom and Australian drug courts. The UK overcame its problems by drafting a 10-year government drug strategy. An anti-drugs co-ordinator is directly responsible to Cabinet for spending the drug strategy budget. New Zealand could also benefit from such a co-ordinated approach, says Walker. His drug court will be adopting the best parts of overseas models, while developing its own culture. As the presiding judge, he is unlikely to emulate the showmanship of a colleague he saw in Florida dealing with an offender who returned two contaminated urine samples. "In front of everybody, before the kid was even removed from the courtroom, he had his belt taken off him, his stud taken out of his tongue. He was shackled around his legs and the chain went to his handcuffs and he shuffled off," says Judge Walker. "It brings a tear to your eye when you see it for the first time." More his style is the banter he heard in a Dublin drug court where a judge was hearing the case of a 40-year-old alcoholic mum facing a fraud charge. "Have you got any drink on you today?" asked the judge. "No, I only drink on special occasions," she replied. "This would be a special occasion would it? I can smell you from here," he quipped. Sydney has an adult drug court and is trialling a drug court for youths. Melbourne has a diversion scheme where non-violent offenders with drug problems are offered early treatment by way of bail conditions. Judge Walker's visit to Melbourne proved that he was not the only one haunted by the terrors of heroin. A Melbourne children's court judge told him that he could picture the faces of numerous children he had dealt with who had died from heroin overdoses. "It gave me a great deal of anxiety about what would happen if the heroin problem jumped the ditch," says Walker. "There didn't seem to be any particular reason why it wouldn't. I don't think we should be complacent because people say there is only alcohol and cannabis among young people here." While judges have a role to play in attempting to change behaviour and prevent reoffending, communities must also take some responsibility, says Judge Walker. In the seven years his Nelson youth court's jurisdiction has covered Golden Bay and Murchison, he cannot remember a case from those areas. "I cannot believe they don't have problems there, but they are clearly being dealt with in those communities. There's a lesson in all of that." Plenty of young offenders eligible A confidential report is understood to have found no shortage of candidates for the drug court. A scouting exercise by the Ministry of Justice late last year found no shortage of potential candidates for Christchurch's new drug court. A ministry adviser sat in on weekly sessions at Christchurch's Youth Court in November and looked for candidates likely to qualify for the one-year pilot. The ministry refuses to release a confidential report she wrote for the working party behind the pilot. But the exercise apparently turned up plenty of candidates with alcohol and drug dependencies - an even mix of Maori and European. The drug court, initiated by Nelson-based Judge John Walker, expects to deal with up to 50 youths in its first year. Its target group, according to Judge Walker, is top-end recidivist offenders who commit the lion's share of youth crime. "If you target that group, you can potentially make a huge difference," he says. Police, youth advocates, and other agencies will help identify teenagers whose addictions are contributing to their offending. Youths will be assessed by at-court drug clinicians. If eligible for the drug court, they will be remanded for full assessment and a treatment plan. How well they stick to the plan is taken into consideration when their offences are finally dealt with by the drug court. Sex offences will be excluded from the court. Police Youth Aid co-ordinator Sergeant Chris Roper, who will be prosecuting in the drug court, expects to see a mixture of recidivist and lighter offenders. "You will get a cross-section from kids with quite significant drug and alcohol issues to some just starting down that path," he says. Chris Roper believes hardened recidivist offenders with substance-abuse problems will be the most difficult to reach. "Generally speaking, in my experience, they are not prepared to address those issues because they don't see them as a problem," he says. "To a degree, a number seem to be quite enjoying that lifestyle." One youth with drug issues, who has just turned 15, has already racked up 50 charges for burglary, car conversion, dishonesty, and escaping custody. Of five youths held in police cells early this year - because secure accommodation was not available for them at the Kingslea Residential Centre - - all had drug and alcohol problems. The lack of residential treatment options remains Chris Roper's biggest concern about the new court. "It is incredibly difficult to treat adolescents for drug and alcohol problems, particularly those involved in criminal offending." Some of Christchurch's most notable repeat offenders are well known to police by their 10th birthday. "They are very few in number, but quite prolific and very hard to deal with," he says. Youth advocates agree that young offenders' denial of their alcohol and drug problems will be a huge challenge for the court. Barrister Adrienne Edwards says youths mask their problems and it is only in family group conferences that the truth emerges. "As youth advocates we totally support anything that Judge Walker can do to get these kids help, particularly at the beginning," she says. "The biggest trouble I can see is that kids will not admit needing it." Fellow advocate and Christchurch city councillor Alister James has found that other young offenders, fed up with the "high" life, reach a stage where they are crying out for help. He is now lobbying to make sure a safety net exists when Queen Mary's residential programme folds. - --- MAP posted-by: Beth