The goal was to keep people with addiction out of jails and prisons and prevent new offenses. Phase I participants attend court weekly, and drug test on a color code system and random drug tests. The two programs are overseen by different state agencies—court referral falls under the Alabama Administrative Office of Courts while community corrections is under the Alabama Department of Corrections—but in both cases the drug testing process is administered by local offices, with little oversight from the state. Located in Alabama’s largest city, the UAB program helps participants with transportation by providing bus passes for those who can’t otherwise get to their color code tests. “Now if I get a positive I’ll send them to the hospital before I fire them because I want to make damn sure.”. After a petition has been entered} it will be forwarded to the District Attorney's office for approval or denial. Meaning of symbols: The first two symbols in HTML color code represents the intensity of red color. These numbers are in hexadecimal numeral system. But, Harden said, complying with color code puts his job in jeopardy. It’s the mindset Erie County’s common pleas court judges have now collectively adopted when considering their latest move. Alabama’s State Fire Marshal later ruled the fire an arson, and it remains under investigation. or. About 100 miles southwest in Walker County, known as the epicenter of Alabama’s opioid crisis, Derrick Harden said he was ordered to comply with color code after being arrested and charged with illegal possession of prescription drugs in November 2019. Thursday, January 14, 2021 - 6:30pm. He said he’s received more than 100 complaints about the color code program over the past several years. Drug addicted offenders with minor criminal histories and a current Possession charge are encouraged to enter a petition to allow application to enter drug court. Drug Court is for people who want to make positive, long lasting changes in their lives. But he worries what will happen when he goes before a judge, because of the consequence for missing tests. “Admittedly, we have a lot of resources,” Davis said. Plato-Bryant acknowledged that drug tests aren’t foolproof, but said there are safeguards to avoid punishing people whose test results are inaccurate. Baldwin County Drug Court. Submit to random drug and alcohol tests. If you are at an office or shared network, you can ask the network administrator to run a scan across the network looking for misconfigured or infected devices. Drug Court is not an easy way to avoid jail or other consequences related to criminal behavior. He lived in a friend’s camper trailer rent-free, but he could not save up enough to buy a car. Please check your inbox to confirm. Samantha Rose, a spokeswoman for the Alabama Department of Corrections, which oversees community corrections, said the agency disagrees with the SPLC’s characterization of the community corrections financial model. In 1990, Alabama passed the Mandatory Treatment Act, legislation that mandated testing and monitoring people who were convicted of crimes involving drugs and alcohol. On a cold, rainy day in early 2019, Frank Cobb was working at a Google data center in Bridgeport, a small town in northeast Alabama, when his color was called. Ashley Remkus is an investigative reporter focusing on crime and justice for AL.com in Alabama. “[You] have no money then the stress gets to you and boom, back on drugs.”, In December 2017, a small group of Jackson County residents staged a protest outside the county courthouse to decry the costs of color code. “It makes me so mad to see what people have to do.”. Neeley emphasized that drug testing must be seen as just one tool in the treatment toolbox. Forgot account? Drug Screens will take place at: Lenawee Alcohol & Drug Testing Center Lenawee Medical Professional Building 142 E.Maumee Street - Suite 7 Adrian, MI 49221 The following procedures are to be followed: All urine testing will be conducted on a random basis, based on a color assigned to you by your probation officer. By implementing drug courts in Alabama, Chief Justice Cobb has given courts the resources to give thousands of offenders the tools they need to defeat their addictions and learn to live sober and productive lives. Color code tests are just one of the treatment tools they use. Log In. When she couldn’t pay it and stopped showing up to her tests, she went to prison. This is in massachusetts dcf, I'm just wondering what the frequency of Aqua means, or what the severity of the color aqua means. “We might get grants if we’re lucky,” he said. Random Color Code System. “It seemed weird that they would suddenly have a positive, when they had been doing good for so long,” he said. Another woman in Walker County reported racking up $347 in color code debt. Retired Alabama Chief Justice Sue Bell Cobb had a vision to put a drug court in every county in Alabama. Your IP: 34.199.252.226 At the time, program director Brandon Brown told local media he was uncertain about the extent of the fire’s damage to the office’s files. • Off of color code means that your testing will be less often but more random. Tip line: Have you been part of a color code or court-ordered drug testing program and want to share your story? State records show that of the 31,075 color code participants in 2019, 37 percent completed the program that year. While the program already referred its color code participants to outside programming such as Alcoholics Anonymous, Guffey wanted to add an in-house rehab program and GED classes for participants. “I get so frustrated, I wish they would work with me, but they don’t,” Cobb said. “It’s a pay-to-play model that drains millions of dollars each year in fees from participants who mostly struggle to make ends meet,” the report concluded. UAB also monitors progress, said Davis, rather than failing someone because of one missed test or positive result. Video courtesy of Garry L. Morgan/“In the Boro”, For some participants, the cost of color code has made it difficult to pay rent or bills. In some cases, the fees fund employee salaries and local offices, such as in Walker County. Learn more about Friends of the NewsHour. She can be reached at elizabethflock@gmail.com. Court referral officers “strive to effectively and accurately evaluate a client to appropriately place and refer him, to manage and treat him as a person—to ultimately help him,” Plato-Bryant said. © 1996 - 2021 NewsHour Productions LLC. During that time, Chamblee said, he had to sell his truck and couldn’t afford his apartment. Guffey said that in 2018 he requested an audit of the color code program because he was concerned the county was not getting the amount it was owed. Officials from both agencies said the state doesn’t make any profits from fees collected for color code drug testing, so any profits made at the local level can stay there. The Color Code Drug Doses and the Treatment Protocols shall be used to determine drug doses. An individual can be put on color code through the court referral program, or through a separate program called “community corrections,” which allows some non-violent Alabama offenders to serve their sentences in the community. It’s unclear how much money people in Alabama pay each year for color code testing because the state does not collect that data. Cody Chamblee, who is 29, was on color code in Jackson County from 2015 to 2019 after being arrested for a DUI and marijuana possession, court records show. “If I have a false positive why can’t I go to the hospital and get my own testing?” he said. In 2019, the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), a civil rights organization based in Montgomery, investigated drug testing and other facets of community corrections programs in Alabama. They also connect people with counseling, drug treatment and other services, such as anger management classes, drug education and self-help groups. “Color code, it’s just a cash cow,” she said. “Even though I’m a productive member of society and I’m living right, I just can’t get away from the [criminal justice system],” he said. Dakota Fox said that during his nearly five years as an attorney in Alabama, he was also troubled by how many of his clients failed drug tests during their last months in the program. I've been on probation for six months now, half of my probation sentence for a dui, and I'm just wondering how often my color will be called for random screening, and how to go about getting my probation mitigated. Kathryn Casteel, a co-author of the SPLC report, said this “pay-to-play” model existed across the board in the 36 Alabama counties they examined, with just a couple exceptions. Studies have shown that urine tests are more than 92 percent accurate at detecting cocaine and marijuana, but about 74 percent accurate at detecting methamphetamines and about 71 percent accurate for opiates, according to the Mayo Clinic report. He recently got a new job working for the city of Stevenson, but still has no vehicle or other way to get to the drug testing facility in Scottsboro, 20 miles away. Elizabeth Flock, Ashley Remkus, AL.com Show up on time to all court appearances. Cobb is still under a court order to attend color code drug tests. Media/News Company. Color Drug Testing Probation The most commonly abused and therefore most tested for substances include marijuana, cocaine, PCP, opiates, amphetamines, barbiturates, and benzodiazepines; the first 5 being included in the. So you stop going.”, “It’s a pay-to-play model that drains millions of dollars each year in fees from participants who mostly struggle to make ends meet.” -SPLC report, “If clients are not showing up for drug tests, it’s usually either a scheduling difficulty or there are barriers that make it problematic for them to show up… But those can be addressed.”. He was re-arrested for possession in 2016 and has been on color code ever since. The DeKalb County Drug Court (DCDC) is a two-year judicially supervised drug treatment/alternative sentencing program offered by DeKalb County Superior Court. “Had Chairman Guffey been enrolled in the [court referral] program he would have been offered the opportunity to confirm his false positive” with additional in-house testing, Plato-Bryant said. The tests, which are also widely used for workplace and health care drug screenings, are easy to collect, less expensive than laboratory analysis and the results are available quickly. “We’re here to make them responsible for their actions and to grow as a person, to overcome their addiction or their disability, whatever it might be, and anything we can do to help them.”. “I couldn’t pay my rent or bills because of color code and jail,” he said. In its report, the Southern Poverty Law Center highlighted several suggestions for improvement: that the drug testing program would benefit from statewide standards, better oversight and a common fee structure. Like in many counties in Alabama, color code in Jackson County is operated by largely autonomous nonprofits that set and collect the fees, then distribute dividends to the county. Neeley said his program in DeKalb and Cherokee counties does not charge most of its clients drug testing fees. Drug testing is random. “It’s all about the money.”, Participants in the Jackson County Court Referral and Community Corrections program in Scottsboro, Alabama, complain of high costs per drug test. The Community Justice Program at the University of Alabama at Birmingham connects color code participants with drug treatment, assists in finding employment and provides resources to help them successfully complete the program. 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