rdtorecoveryblog

Working in the behavioral health field is never dull. Recently, we have met a wave of “savvy shoppers” not due to one day sales or store clearances but due to the need of protect their alcohol and/or other drug addiction.

In most judicial circuits, most Judges sentence alcohol and drug related criminal offenders to receive a substance abuse evaluation to determine if the person is suffering from a substance related disorder and; if so, to receive proper treatment with the goal to reduce recidivism rates for addicted criminal offenders. A big thank you to the Judges who think of public safety and protecting our communities above any other issue.

However, as the saying goes, where there is a will, there is a way. Lately, when a defendant (pre or post adjudication) receives a diagnosis and treatment recommendation they “do not like” they withdraw the Authorization to Release the Information to the referral source (criminal defense attorney, pre-trial or probation officer) and the evaluator is not allowed to release that the defendant had a clinical evaluation nor the circumstances of their case at the time of their evaluation appointment (whether the defendant tested positive for illegal drugs, appeared to the appointment under the influence of alcohol and/or drugs, or any other issue of concern).

What they do next is to go for a second or even third clinical evaluation and present a very different version of what they disclosed at the time of the first clinical evaluation (which became the diagnostic criteria for the original diagnosis and treatment recommendations); they either have had time to “clean” themselves from drugs, specially if addicted to certain stimulants or they have learned how to adulterate a drug screen with the goal of receiving a “No Treatment” recommendation from the next evaluator. The new evaluator is unaware that the defendant has received one or more evaluations in the past few days and the new evaluation results in a “no treatment” recommendation because the defendant has learned to work the system and now he is able to present misleading information to the new evaluator. He has become a “savvy diagnosis shopper” and an expert at manipulating the system.

A potential solution: if the defendant is still being advised by his defense attorney, he can be directed “not to” do that because sooner or later he will end up in prison, dead or in the worse case scenario he would end up killing an innocent person, if not our children. In those cases, there is little leverage as to what can be done to help the defendant address his addiction other than having a responsible criminal defense attorney to advice his client of the potential consequences of manipulating the system. However, if the defendant is already in a pre-trial diversion program or if he is now serving his sentence on probation; then, it would be extremely wise if probation officers could know who has the probationer selected to conduct their clinical evaluation at the time they first report with the probation officer.

That is, if the probation officer has knowledge that, for instance, the defendant has selected Road to Recovery for his evaluation and they return to their probation officer with a “No treatment” recommendation from XYZ Counseling Center, there is a high likelihood that they received an evaluation that recommended treatment from the original evaluator they had selected because they were honest about their alcohol and/or drug consumption and/or tested positive for drugs or alcohol at the time of the evaluation. However, knowing the consequences of his actions, they withdrew their consent to release that information and went shopping around for a no-treatment recommendation.

Possibly, we could remedy this by having the probation officer sign an authorization to get the results of the evaluation conducted the first time the defendant selected an evaluator. The defendant still has the right to seek a second opinion. However, if the second evaluation has different information from the first one, the probation officer can verify that the original evaluation has more validity and have the client abide by such recommendations. It would be easy then to compare the information provided to both evaluators and make a decision based on that information.

”Savvy Shopping has been happening way too often in DeKalb County and several other judicial circuits; however, since this is ultimately a matter of public safety we should all be concered with how addicted criminal offenders have learned to circumvent the judge’s orders. I believe it is everyone’s duty to do something about this problem to help improve the effectiveness of the judicial system in Georgia.