The Greenbrier Day Report Center (GDRC), now located in Ronceverte, offers a grant-based solution to the growing problem of escalating prison costs in West Virginia. Instead of locking up those with additions for a moral failure, the GDRC treats addiction as a disease, providing services and support for those who need help getting off drugs.
“Without this program, I would probably be in prison or dead,” said one enrollee.
When a person is convicted of a drug crime, often the sentence can contain prison time. Taxpayers of West Virginia then provide resources and money to incarcerate them to the tune of $48.50 each day per prisoner, according to Laura Legg, the director of the GDRC. This can be costly to the county and the state.
Day report centers are a prime alternative to prison. Funding for the program does not come from the county; instead, funding primarily comes through two grants: a community corrections grant provided by the West Virginia Division of Justice and Community Services, and a Justice Reinvestment Initiative grant, a program aimed at driving down criminal costs using evidence-based, cost-benefit analysis.
“The county puts very little [money] into the program,” said Legg. “Basically everything here is covered through grants. It is a cost savings for the county, it’s $48.50 a day [in some places] to take someone into jail. … It’s ridiculous to incarcerate them; nothing is going to change. Nine months, a year later, they’re the same person, and they’re not going to get any treatment.”
Enrollees to the GDRC come through the criminal justice system for drug-related offenses. After committing a drug offense, a potential enrollee could be ordered to a day report by a circuit judge or magistrate as a direct sentence or part of probation, referred by a prosecuting attorney as part of a diversion agreement, or ordered there as part of a re-entry program after being released from prison.
“This is what they do instead of going to jail,” Legg said. “If they don’t comply, we can go back to the judge and say, ‘they are continuing to use drugs, … they won’t do what they’re supposed to do.’ [However], right now we are running on about an 80 percent success rate. You’re never going to get 100 [percent]. … Our main priority is knowing where they’re at, what they’re doing, and if they’re going to treatment.”
Each enrollee is given a color group (red, blue, green, etc.) and required to check in by phone each morning. Each day, the center picks a color, and all of the enrollees assigned to the color have to come in for a random drug screening. The facility has its own drug lab, allowing results of the drug tests as soon as a half an hour after the test. In addition, the lab also performs drug testing for the Department of Health and Human Resources employees and random drug screenings of employees at various companies. Local police have also used the lab to test almost immediately after making an arrest. Having the lab on site is a huge advantage to the center, with most day reports having to wait up to a week for an off-site lab to process samples.
Once enrolled, random drug testing is not the focus of the program. Therapy services, housing assistance, and job placement assistance are provided. Community service placement is also offered, sometimes required as part of parole, but recommended for every enrollee. The center also offers an alternative to home. On days enrollees come in for counseling or for a drug test, many just stay in the community room upstairs and socialize, providing a safe place outside of the home to retreat to when problems arise.
Although most day report centers have to contract with another company or facility like Seneca Health for their mental health services, the GDRC has two counselors on staff. Individual therapy sessions with mental health therapists are available to every enrollee. These sessions allow the enrollees to find potential underlying reasons that might have exacerbated the potential for drug use, many of whom will have never been screened for any type of mental illness. In addition, the GDRC offers 15 different evidence-based treatment groups, such as substance abuse groups. Many of the enrollees struggle with mental illness.
“You can go to them with any of your problems, no matter how big or how small, and they’ll be there to help you, any time of the day,” said another anonymous enrollee.
Day report centers have cropped up in recent years throughout West Virginia. The GDRC began in the basement of the County Courthouse in 2008 with two employees. Five moves and almost 10 years later, it has grown into a two-story building in Ronceverte providing services to nearly 250 enrollees. The centers provide a method of combating the opioid epidemic at a lower cost than imprisoning users, with better health results.
“That’s what we see the most of,” Legg said. “We see a lot of marijuana use, but for the most part it’s opioid use. It’s everywhere.”
In August, the GDRC won an award from the West Virginia Division of Justice and Community Services for its work. The Martin J. Good Award was created six years ago to recognize excellence in West Virginia Day Report Centers and acknowledged the Greenbrier County program as “exceed[ing] in every category of the national corrections checklist” and is “the only community corrections program in the state to score ‘very high’ in the category of evidence-based practices category.” This is the second time this award has been presented to the program in the six years of the award’s existence.
Read more in the Friday, November 3, edition of The West Virginia Daily News.
