Extensive Narcotics Diversion Expansion and Enhancement Program

This proposal requests funding to support a community collaboration among
the Terrebonne Parish District Attorney’s Office Extensive Narcotics Diversion Program (END)
and partner public agencies and community organizations to address substance use disorders
while reducing unnecessary prosecution and incarceration for felony level drug offenses. The
END program seeks to divert non-violent offenders from the traditional court system offering a
treatment and recovery resolution instead. The END program is a pre-booking and post-booking
treatment alternative to incarceration program. It is a prosecutor led court diversion /intervention
program; it utilizes court programming to prioritize and expedite treatment and recovery services
for individuals at high risk of overdose; it coordinates evidence-based substance use disorder
treatment related to opioids, stimulants and other drugs. With this application, we are seeking
support from BJA to improve and enhance the screening process to increase the number of
qualified felony level drug offenses that are offered the opportunity to receive case management
referrals and treatment in lieu of conviction and incarceration. Our goal is to identify appropriate
END participants as early as possible in the process and to increase our capacity to handle the
additional participants. By providing expanded case management, treatment referrals and other
social services through the program, we can address the substance use and any disorders while
pausing the court process in order to allow the participant to address these issues and begin the
recovery process. In 2022, the district attorney’s office received referrals totaling 625 felony
drug offenses. Of these 61 were screened and approved for participation in the END program,
being offered the opportunity to participate in supervision and treatment, avoiding trial,
conviction and incarceration. Forty-two (42) of these cases, 6.72%, eventually enrolled in the
program. The expansion of the program would seek a 20% year over year increase in the number
of participants given the opportunity to treatment alternative to traditional case processing. In
addition, recent losses in funding and other economic challenges such as COVID-19 and
Hurricane IDA have also degraded our ability to offer treatment alternatives to incarceration thru
pre-trial diversion programming. BJA support through this award will allow the END program to
expand prosecutor screenings to identify all eligible participants, provide dedicated case
management, data collection, and increased drug testing to support treatment and recovery as an
alternative to incarceration.