Hi, everyone.It’s Marie Drake of the Drake Law Firm, and I’m here to announce that the Drake Law Firm is a sponsor of the Partners in Recovery Breakfast for Court Support Jeff Co. Now, what is Court Support Jeff Co? It is a nonprofit that helps to fund the problem solving courts in Jefferson County and some of the municipal courts in Lakewood.
So you might be wondering what problem solving courts are and how they’re different from a regular court when you get in trouble for whatever. And they are very different, they’re very progressive. And for example, Recovery Court, they’ll take someone with a felony regarding drugs or alcohol and as an alternative,have them go to recovery court where the judge will order them to some sort of treatment program, require proof of being clean and off drugs through drug testing, proof of sobriety, and also will celebrate when they have certain milestones in whatever treatment program they decide to do or the court decides for them. And it’s very, very different from regular court because it actually has a pretty high rate of success. And Colorado has led the way in doing this as sort of an alternative to the revolving door of the justice system for these people. And it also saves taxpayer money. So it’s amazing and we support it. There are seven different kinds of problem solving courts in this system, and one of them that’s very near and dear to my heart is Veterans Court because my dad was a veteran. And what Veterans Court does, and they take felony level cases, they bring those men and women into this system and have a holistic approach where they look at the whole person and they’ll help with mental health.
Help with PTSD
The hope with all of that versus just being punishment focused. So I love that approach because first of all, they have much higher level of success in people not getting in trouble over and over again. And that is very, as I said, close to my heart, because we want to help our returning veterans. Another problem solving court that’s close to my heart is the recovery court. And what the recovery court does is it takes people charged with felonies and has a holistic approach so that it’s sort of a bridge back to life versus just a punitive approach where you go to prison or go to the county jail.
So what I love about it is these people are held accountable. So they have to want this as much as the judge and the court staff want it for them, meaning they will be given bus passes to get where they need to go for work and for their program, whatever it is. And they are given King Soopers cards, for example, sometimes to help with groceries and to take the pressure off and they also have to check in with drug testing. They have to be responsible. But these courts, particularly recovery court, has such a higher success rate than just the sort of punishment approach. There are a number of other problem solving courts that I didn’t get into today, including they have a much higher success rate, they save taxpayer money, and we all like to see families stay united where they can. So we are a big supporter of this program and we want to see it move forward and continue its success in the future. If you want to learn more about Court Support Jeff Co or you want to donate or you know someone who could benefit from being in a problem solving court system versus whatever is going on right now, have them get in touch with it. And we will also put a link in this video if you’d like to donate. We believe in these problem solving courtsbecause they actually solve problems.
