Drug Court

“Drug Court”                                                             

by Joseph Pangaro

  

There was a time when going to court meant you might have to face the judge, the officer that wrote you a ticket or arrested you, or maybe the neighbor that signed a complaint against you for your barking dog.

If you were arrested for possession of a small amount of drugs you could expect a fine and an admonishment, the first time. Well, maybe the second and third time too. After that you would most certainly be sentenced to the county jail for a very uncomfortable period of time. Most of the repeat offenders were people who were hopelessly addicted to illegal drugs. Their lives, completely ruled by the relentless, never ending need for more and more of the illicit substance, spin out of control. These people are easy to ignore, easy to write off. We, the non addicted members of our world offer them some good, simple advice; “Stop taking drugs and get a job”. The reality of drug abuse is a little more complicated than that. As anyone who has real experience with drug addicts and drug addiction can tell you; the doctors who treat their afflictions, the friends who lock their doors so they don’t get robbed blind, the parents who cry themselves to sleep wondering if their child will make it home that night, and the police who have to deal with them at their worst. Drugs control and destroy many innocent lives. That’s the truth of it.

These drug addicts, the people we write off, are members of our community, they deserve our help. 

A few years back the courts realized that most drug offenders were not career criminals out to plunder our society for their own gain. They are, for the most part regular people who made some really bad decisions and got involved with things they never should have.  The answer to this problem, serving societies needs by adjudicating the drug offenders, and at the same time trying to help these people trapped by substance abuse, is the DRUG COURT.

This is a unique system that covers both of the bases. The drug abusers have to face the wrath of the court AND get help for themselves. The program is not automatic, but it is voluntary. People who enter into the system have to report to a Judge and probation officer on a regular basis. They also have to face their peers in the drug court system. It is set up like a 12 step program, only this one has teeth and large metal doors that slam shut on you if you don’t follow through. Participants meet to give the group updates on their progress of finding jobs, staying sober and remaking their broken lives. I was initially skeptical of this program. I believed it was another “Feel Good” get over program. We would all feel good, because we were “helping” and the abuser was “getting over” on the system by pretending to get better.

I sat in on a session of drug court recently, and I have to admit I see it differently now.  The judge, a veteran of the Criminal Justice System, was fair, concerned and tough as nails when he had to be. The participants took turns telling the judge, the panel and their peers, what had been going on in their lives. Some of the stories were very upbeat. Some were heart wrenching. Others were B.S. The judge, panel and peers clapped and encouraged the people who were obviously trying to reclaim their lives. As for the peers who were trying to get over….. they were held to account, then provided encouragement. After it was all said and done I was impressed with their efforts. I was moved by their struggles and I was renewed by the chance that it might work, at least for some of them.  Let me know what you think.                              

Faces From the past

         “Faces from the past”

By Joseph Pangaro

There is a term used in law enforcement, “career enders”.  What it refers to are cases you worked where the defendant was sentenced to enough jail time that your career would be over and you would be retired before they got out. I have worked many of these types of cases. Looking back over these investigations I can say I was proud of the work me and my team did on them. In some of them I was the lead investigator, in others I was only a bit player, but all in all they are a part of my history and career.

When Cops get together the conversation will eventually turn to police work. They talk about the good arrests they made, the horrible things they saw; they laugh at the sometimes hysterically ridiculous situations they have seen people in, and they talk about the bigger cases they have worked. As these stories are told you can see the faces of the other cops smiling, frowning or otherwise reflecting the mood of the story and living vicariously through the other officer’s tale. No matter how many times you are involved in a serious fight or foot chase, and regardless of the reality that almost everyone’s stories are virtually identical, there is still interest in the specifics of the job. As I was thinking about this story sharing activity that most cops engage in, I was reminded of several pretty big career enders I worked over the last 25 years. The more I thought about those cases, the more the specifics came to the surface leading ultimately to the bad guys who ended up in prison. It was at this point that I began to think about the human side of this drama, the real life people on the other end of the “Career ender” stories.

The New Jersey Department of Corrections has a public web site that anyone can view. Part of that web site is an offender search. You can look up people in the system by name. So last week I had a need to check something on that site.

Before I left it I checked on a couple of people I knew were in the system, some career enders. As I searched for them I was shocked by a reality that presented itself to me.

I popped in a name of young man that had been sentenced to life without parole for his criminal actions. When I last saw him at trial in 1998, he was a healthy 26 year old man.  Intelligent and quick witted.  When he was arrested I interviewed several times. His crimes were bad, no doubt it and he was in the position he was in due to his actions and decisions, but he was congenial enough. Part of the game for both sides involved in a criminal investigation is to win over the other person, to work the situation to your best advantage. For the police that is to get a truthful and complete confession. For the defendant that is to gain the sympathy of the officers and mitigate their problems as much as possible. That being said, he was not the monster in the closet you would imagine. He confessed, went to trial, was found guilty and was sentenced to life without parole. That was the last I thought about him until last week.

As the computer screen flickered and the different web pages appeared, suddenly there he was. In my mind I pictured the 26 year old man from the interviews. What I saw on the screen was completely different.

He would now be 38 years old. The rough edges of the street had been worn away from him. The look of youth was gone. What I saw now was a man who was struggling, a person adrift on the sea of life going no where. As I looked at this picture, I could feel the smile on my face fade away. His eyes were dull, his body language, even in the photo, revealed he was spiritually beaten up. I could sense the loneliness of his existence and I felt pity for him.

As I hit the exit key and left the web page and that image behind I thought, what a great tragedy it is for those people who commit such acts that require the rest of us lock them away. What a loss for their families and what a desperate situation it must for them.

This experience, seeing this face from the past, and the realities of his day to day life caught me off guard. I can’t say it caused me some type of soul searching grief, it did not. I did what was right, I did what was necessary to protect many other innocent people by taking this guy off the street. His actions and our system of justice did the rest and I sleep like a baby at night. Seeing that picture, that moment frozen in time did give me pause though. Seeing any person, regardless of how deserving, having to live such a life is a terribly sad situation.

As my introspection session ended I put the experience in its proper place. I said a prayer for him, his victims and all the cops out in the street doing the hard work that needs to be done.

Let me know what you think      

jpangaro194@yahoo.com

New members

First of all I would like to thank all of you who have joined and visited this site. The world of law enforcement is a constantly changing and this blog is dedicated to keeping pace with that change.
In the next ferw days I will upload  few new columns and articles I have been working on.

I will have piece on Active Shooters adn how the public can and should react if you ever find yourself in this horrible situation.

I will up date some material I had covered in the past and I have a few new thoughts.

I would also like to offer any of you readers out ther that like Action, and or police type novels to drop me an email and I can send you some galleys of a few fiction pieces I am working on.

ONce again than