| Members Present Justice Mary Muehlen Maring, Chair | Members Absent Chief Chris Magnus Guests Justice Thomas Cornish |
Staff
Marilyn Moe
The meeting was called to order by Justice Maring.
Judge Thomas Cornish of Las Cruces, New Mexico was a guest at this meeting. Judge Cornish provided technical assistance to the North Dakota Juvenile Drug Court Program on October 11th and 12th. He also attended the Northeast Central Judicial District's staffing and drug court session during his visit. The teams will receive Judge Cornish's final evaluation from American University.
The minutes of the June 22, 2001 meeting were approved.
New Business:
The Grand Forks team report was given by Judge Kleven. Rita Bry has been hired as the new local coordinator. John Thelen has replaced Rob Olson as public defender for the program. Detective Mike Iwan is now attending weekly staffing meetings and will facilitate an information meeting with Chief John Packet of Grand Forks and other representatives of the team. They have now included representatives from District Juvenile Services and Lutheran Social Services at their monthly administrative meeting. NEC presently has 14 participants in their program at this time.
The NEC JDC participants are all attending school. Kristi Lantz from the school district is also attending their staff meetings. We discussed the school attendance records at Grand Forks. Peter Welte volunteered to look into the problem. Deb Davis thanked the members of the JDC team that participated on a panel at the Alcohol and Substance Abuse Summit in Bismarck. They have received a lot of positive feedback from their presentation.
NEC will have two graduates next week. Justice Maring and Chief Justice VandeWalle will be attending Juvenile Drug Court in NEC next week.
We discussed probation officers for drug court. Judge Kleven suggested that Grand Forks have one probation officer assigned to drug court. NEC will hold further discussion on the subject.
Judge Erickson gave the Fargo team report. They have 13 participants in the program. The administrative committee is meeting every other week. They are establishing firmer criteria for moving from Path to Path. Of the 13 participants, 8 of them have a dual diagnosis. Ron Schneider reported that the school officer's time has been taken away because of the shortage of law enforcement in Fargo.
We discussed tracking issues. The teams are pleased with Lutheran Social Services trackers but feel they need more tracking hours to enhance their programs. Jeff Bry from Lutheran Social Services has been asked to present a proposal to Greg Wallace. Judge Cornish suggested the possibility of hiring retired officers for tracking purposes. Justice Maring asked each team to prepare a proposal.
Marilyn Moe distributed training sessions for the National Drug Court Institute. There was also discussion on the Third Annual Juvenile and Family Drug Court Training Conference. Marilyn will check out other training possibilities suggested by Judge Cornish.
The participant manual has been approved and distributed for the North East Central Judicial District's drug court. East Central is still revising their phases and will send the final draft to Marilyn when completed.
Greg Wallace suggested that we hire Mike Nearney to speak on the effects of drugs on the adolescent brain. There might be a possibility that we could coordinate the costs with another agency. Judge Cornish also suggested Andrew Osborn from the National Council of Juvenile and Family Drug Court.
Dr. Kevin Thompson distributed a Statistical Summary of the Juvenile Drug Courts in North Dakota. He gave a presentation on this report. Dr. Thompson stated that he will be going to Bismarck to add sixty more juveniles to the comparison group. There was discussion on the recidivism rate for both the drug court participants and for the comparison group. Dr. Thompson will update the team every three months.
We discussed the sealing of the participants' files. Justice Maring received a copy of the handbook on Federal Confidentiality issues. She will have copies made for team members. Karen Larson is planning a regional meeting on the issue.
There will be a meeting on the Edward Memorial Byrne Grant on Monday, October 16, 2001. Justice Maring, Dr. Kevin Thompson and Marilyn Moe will be attending this meeting.
Old Business:
The Underage Drinking Grant has provided funding for a video of the drug court program. Justice Maring and Marilyn Moe will meet with Video Arts in Fargo and discuss a proposal.
The committee agreed to meet in Bismarck for their next quarterly meeting. They will tour the Youth Correctional Center as part of their meeting.
The meeting was adjourned.