Vol. 36, Number 7—July 2004

Addicted and a Danger to the Community:  Supervising Meth Addicts

"Meth addicts are, in my opinion, clearly the most difficult offenders to supervise," says Chief Judge Richard Kopf of Nebraska, "and that includes heroin and crack cocaine offenders. Chief Judge McNamee (D. Ariz.) agrees. "Compared to abusers of other illegal drugs," he says, "methamphetamine addicts have an unusually high failure rate. Probation officers spend inordinate amounts of time with these offenders, imposing graduated sanctions for violations of supervision conditions, including measures such as increased testing, additional treatment, and placement in a community confinement center. Unfortunately, the outcome of these cases is often revocation with a return to prison."

The problem may lie in the very nature of methamphetamine addiction. The National Institute on Drug Abuse calls methamphetamine a "powerfully addictive stimulant that dramatically affects the central nervous system." Methamphetamine can be smoked, snorted, orally ingested, or injected.

Meth addiction is a chronic, relapsing disease. Abusers often exhibit psychotic behavior, including extreme violence and paranoia. "In pretrial, they're extremely hard to deal with," says Kopf. "Our detention rate for meth addicts is over 50 percent." In the Eastern District of Tennessee, at least two weeks of detention is recommended for all meth offenders, rather than pretrial release. "The court has to detain them," says Carl Papa, Chief Pretrial Services Officer for the Eastern District of Tennessee. "Most defendants are unemployed, addicted, in possession of firearms, and pose both a risk of flight and a danger to the community."

"Meth has taken over moonshine production in every little hollow," says Chief Probation Officer Robert Musser in the Middle District of Tennessee, and with the influx of meth-related cases, pretrial policies have had to be modified. "Normally, with a Îhot' user, there's no pretrial release," says Musser. "The court keeps them in custody for 30 to 60 days so their bodies can get rid of the drug before they're put in treatment." Without the time spent detoxifying, Musser says, 75 percent of the meth addicts will abuse again.

Nationally in 2003, 4,453 offenders in the federal court system received treatment for methamphetamine use.

"Because methamphetamine is so highly addictive," says Chief Judge Mark Bennett (N.D. Iowa), "intensive substance abuse treatment for defendants is needed. This treatment is not readily available in the community due to lack of treatment bed space."

In the Northern District of Iowa, statistics show that pretrial defendants are more likely to violate their supervision conditions by continued use of methamphetamine. The district is using drug testing more intensely as a monitoring tool for abuse relapse and early intervention. Chief Probation Officer for the District of Nebraska, Craig Saigh, reports more money is being spent on urinalysis (UA) tests for the same reasons. Similarly, the District of Oregon has seen the number of positive UAs go from 207+ tests in 1999 to an incredible 380+ tests in 2003.

According to Chief U.S. Probation Officer Butch Hannah in the Eastern District of Tennessee, treatment of meth offenders differs greatly from those on other substances and treatment providers are just now getting a handle on effective treatment protocols. "Treatment involves more individual counseling, long-term residential and halfway house-type treatment, in-patient treatment and monitoring through increased urine screens," he said. And, Hannah adds, "Treatment has been a very expensive process with ever shrinking funds for treatment from all sources."

With the rise in offenders in Nebraska, the district has run out of money for pretrial drug treatment. "So in the spring we implemented a Îtriage' approach," said Kopf, "with two treatment beds available a month." In Tennessee, Musser is just hoping that as people become more aware of the dangers of methamphetamine and its addiction, there will come better treatment options.

For pretrial services and probation officers, the volatile nature of methamphetamine users means that personal safety issues are a daily concern. In his district, Saigh would like to send two probation officers on visits, for safety reasons, "but we don't have that luxury if our resources are reduced." There is additional danger. The chemicals used in methamphetamine production are also volatile, and the highly toxic by-products are easily absorbed.

According to Bennett, supervision officers in the Northern District of Iowa frequently encounter toxic residue from methamphetamine labs during unannounced home visits. In the Eastern District of Tennessee, one of the leading districts for meth prosecutions, Hannah said, "The safety risk for officers conducting field work has magnified as officers are finding meth labs during home contacts, not to mention the fact that they normally return to the same home that has been exposed to meth, creating a health hazard."