This proposal requests funding to support a community collaboration among the terrebonne parish district attorneys office extensive narcotics diversion program (end) and partner public agencies and…

This proposal requests funding to support a community collaboration among the terrebonne parish district attorneys 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 attorneys 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.