Diversion Director Resigns, County To Reexamine Program

By Gordon HopkinsThe director of Jefferson County’s Diversion Services has announced her retirement and county commissioners are taking the opportunity to reevaluate the program. Director Peggy Galloway’s last day will be September 30 of this year. Galloway told FJN in an email, “I feel I’ve developed a good program here and I hope that the next person in continues doing good things to help all of the people of Jefferson County.”County Attorney Joseph Casson discussed the program with county commissioners at a meeting on Tuesday, August 12, “Now that Peggy’s retiring, I’d like to have opportunity to maybe with one of you to analyze the success and failures of what we may have expected that program to do, and if there’s something we can do different, and then we’d have some time to hire replacement, if that’s what we’re going to do.” Commission Chair Mark Schoenrock concurred, “I think it’s probably good opportunity for us to do what I would characterize as like a cost benefit analysis.”A diversion program is a voluntary program that offers a chance for a person charged with certain crimes to avoid having a criminal conviction on their record. Jefferson County offers diversion services for both adults and juveniles.Jefferson County’s Diversion Program first began in 2019. Prior to that, diversion services were provided through an inter-local agreement between Jefferson County and Seward County, which expired June 30, 2019. According to a report to the Governor in 2019, prepared by the Commissioner on law Enforcement and Criminal Justice, “Well-designed community-based programs and evidence based practices can effectively reduce adolescent recidivism without relying on punitive punishments of the criminal justice system.”The report also stated, “Alternatively, programs providing therapeutic interventions aimed to help youth address anti-social attitudes, learn problem-solving and perspective-taking skills, along with family counseling and mentoring consistently reduce recidivism rates.”Casson pointed out, “Our numbers are down for law enforcement generally. And I think the board had the idea that what the diversion program would be geared for are younger people. Basically, that was the primary focus, was the younger people. And what we saw was that we weren’t really generating that many cases that would qualify for diversion with juveniles, because typically, any case, any juvenile that law enforcement came in contact with seemed to be of a more serious nature.”Schoenrock asked, “Those cases of a more serious nature, they would not be eligible for the diversion program? They’re going to go through the justice system?”“Right,” said Casson. “The whole idea of the diversion was to save young people from having to go through the trauma of the court system.”Casson added, “What we’re finding is the kids that we’re dealing with today are, I don’t want to say not deserving of a break, but they’re too far over the line to try to preserve their non-involvement (in the court system).” Another problem is drugs. Regarding pretrial drug cases, Casson noted, “And we tried to have some success with that, but we can only go so far, and then we had to turn them loose, and they just go back to where they were. And so, you have to have a longer-term program.”Casson noted a shift in attitude toward drug treatment among users, “And what we’re finding with our meth people is fewer and fewer of them want to address that issue, because the starting point for dealing with addiction is the person wants to deal with it. And I don’t know if it’s a change in what the drug content is.”The addition of fentanyl to methamphetamine makes the drug more addictive. According to Casson, “But we’re not finding, at least in our testing, fentanyl in our methamphetamine. But that doesn’t mean we’re catching all of the people.”Changes to the law have also complicated pretrial services.“What we had in pretrial release, we would have somebody arrested, they’re high, we would ask the court to set a high bond so that they would have to get dried out, and we wouldn’t even accept them into our program for 30 days, until the meth basically got out of their system. So, that you could take even knew what day the week it was, and then try to work with them from that point,” said Casson.“Well, a couple things have happened on that side. The court system, the judges, primarily coming from Lancaster and Douglas County, had pressure on them to revise how bonds are set.” Casson said this was primarily in metropolitan areas with a much higher number of people in jail then in rural areas like Jefferson County, “So, they made the bonding conditions easier, and that applied across the state because you can’t just do it in a certain area. So, we were losing the ability to even keep them in custody, to get them dried out to the point where they would maybe make a good decision about going to treatment.”“So, most of these people are out on bond right away. I’m sure they’re back on the meth, and it’s just we’re not really making a lot of progress with that side of our criminal cases,” said Casson. “And then we have more mental health issues, and those kind of go with the drug addiction as well. So, I think we need to relook at our program to see whether we really want to use our resources there.”

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