Award Information
Description of original award (Fiscal Year 2021, $549,993)
The 8th JDDC is applying for category 3 of the FY2020 Adult Drug Court Discretionary Enhancement Grant.(BJA-2021-00019) The 8th JDDC is an adult multi county drug court distinguished by three separate courts serving 7 counties in Western Minnesota. The court accepts both pre and post adjudicated participants. It covers 5334 square miles and has a combined population of 103,553. The program began operations in 2014.
The 8th JDDC is requesting $500,000 in federal funding to enhance court operations by hiring a dedicated drug court coordinator for the Northern Assignment Area In addition 8th JDDC is requesting funding to support a full time probation officer for the Central Assignment Area. This position was previously state grant funded. That funding is now ending.
The 8th JDDC is requesting consideration as an OJP priority area designation being a rural court. A separate attachment has been included with details as to why this request is being made.
In 2020 (despite the court being limited due to the pandemic) in the 8JDDC - NAA there were 149 felony criminal offenses charged and 79 felony probation violations that may have been appropriate for drug court for a total of 219 cases (crimes of violence were excluded). During that same time frame there were only 12 referrals. With a 10 percent referral rate, there would be 20 cases referred annually. Of those, if there was a 50 percent acceptance rate (10 admission over the course of the three year period that would result in 30 more individuals served in this rural area.
The minimum length in the program is 14 months, participants are allowed to phase advance based on individual needs, and therefore, there is no maximum. The average length of time spend in treatment court for graduates is 22 months.
The target population is high risk/high need individuals who have been arrested for nonviolent felony level offense where drugs were a contributing factor to the offense. The 8JDDC does not deny access to programming based on use of MAT. A wide range of treatment services are provided depending on participant individual needs.
The 8JDDC program incorporates the ten key components as well as BJA best practice standards as reported in the program narrative on pages 3,4,9-11.
The 8th JDDC currently has an active grant with BJA – 2017-DC-BX-0004. The grant is scheduled to expire 9/30/2021. The 8th JDDC is not leveraging any other grants at this time.