Increasing drug use leading more women to crime
Katie Cutshall of Washington is recovering from a heroin addiction.
At 16, Katie Cutshall had her whole life in front of her. But a chance meeting with a boy changed everything.
Fast-forward four years, and at age 20, Cutshall was addicted to heroin and facing her first set of criminal charges for receiving stolen property. Cutshall said the charges were the result of her habit.
“I couldn’t stop,” the now 24 year-old Washington resident said. “I would do whatever I could to get my next fix.”
Cutshall’s situation isn’t uncommon. More and more women are finding themselves in jail as a result of their addiction to drugs, so much so that it’s becoming a national trend.
Nazgol Ghandnoosh, a research analyst for The Sentencing Project, a national project that is looking to change sentencing guidelines, said drugs and drug policies are a major contributor in sending women to jail. She said the trend has been occurring since the 1970s, and continue to rise.
“We are trying to look at the underlying conditions,” she said. “The best way to solve substance abuse and the related crimes is to invest in treatment.”
In Washington County, the situation is no different.
“We’ve close to quadrupled our female population since 1996,” Washington County jail Warden John Temas said. “We are hovering around 80 women daily.”
Temas said the majority of women are in his facility because of heroin.
“It’s becoming more prevalent,” he said.
Jon Ridge, assistant chief probation officer for Washington County, said the majority of all crimes committed in the county are related to drugs. Ridge agrees there has been an uptick in the number of women committing crimes, and it is directly related to addiction. Unlike male addicts, Ridge said female addicts are more difficult to treat.
“They are more complex than men,” he said. “There are physiological differences.”
Those differences include the unique challenges women face.
“It’s not a pretty life. In many cases, these women are involved in abusive relationships, separated from their families and are selling their bodies,” he explained.
Opiate addictions are long-term and difficult to treat, Ridge said. There are no quick-fix solutions to this growing problem.
“Jail can’t fix these people. Short inpatient treatment can’t fix these people,” he said.
While treatment varies depending on the individual, Ridge said structure and long-term rehabilitation are promising. Ridge said the treatment options in Washington are vast, and that the county’s drug court has been very successful.
Ridge said the increase in pregnant women abusing drugs led to the creation of drug court in 2005. Former Washington County Judge Paul Pozonsky presided over the program until former President Judge Debbie O’Dell Seneca removed him from handling criminal cases in 2012, after learning he was under investigation by the attorney general’s office for stealing cocaine evidence. The program was in limbo for nearly a year until O’Dell Seneca assigned it to District Judge Curtis Thompson and renamed it the Washington County Restrictive Treatment Program. Judge John DiSalle now oversees the program.
DiSalle said candidates must be addicted and show they can benefit from the program. The program is used in lieu of a jail sentence and includes four phases. Frequent drug testing and group and individual counseling sessions are also required.
Since 2012, 43 people successfully completed the program. The program is designed to handle 60 people at one time. Currently, there are fewer than 10 spots open.
Erich Curnow, a program specialist with Washington County Drug and Alcohol Commission, said Washington County is in the “midst of an overdose epidemic.”
“Body counts continue to rise,” he said. “In 2011, narcotics began eclipsing alcohol. The numbers have continued to rise each year.”
Complicating the already difficult process of recovery are underlying mental health issues, Curnow said.
“If those conditions are already there, it is very easy to develop an addiction due to self-medicating.”
Greene County does not have a drug court, but it is experiencing similar problems with drugs. In the last year, Greene County jail Warden Harry Gillispie said his facility had 119 females inmates.
“19 years ago, we would only have one or two,” he said. “We have more and more females committing crimes to feed their addictions. They come in skin and bones. We detox them, try to get them on programs. When they leave, they look pretty good, but within three to six months they are right back and looking the same way.”
Cutshall said her jail experience was similar. She detoxed, and was willing join programs in jail. But her focus wasn’t on getting clean.
“I just took what I could so I could get out of jail and keep doing what I was doing,” she said.
Recovery hasn’t been easy for Cutshall. After a brief stint in jail several years ago, Cutshall was sentenced to three months of house arrest and 24 months of probation.
“But I kept getting high,” she said.
She went to rehab, but relapsed.
“I went to rehab nine times and was at a halfway house three times, but I couldn’t stay clean,” she said.
Her addiction alienated her from family members, and left her homeless and without a means of transportation.
“My family didn’t want to talk to me anymore,” Cutshall said. “They would only support me from a distance. I had no place to stay, and I couldn’t hold down a job. Every day was just about getting more. If I didn’t have enough money, I would do just enough to keep me from getting sick.”
Desperate, Cutshall agreed to participate in drug court.
“I tried everything, but nothing worked until this program,” she said. “I started drug court in July 2013 and was clean for 15 months.”
She relapsed in October.
“I was so scared and ashamed of what was going to happen,” she said. “My life was really good. I had everything back.”
Although she was fearful she would be removed from the program, Cutshall was honest about her relapse.
“They don’t turn their back on you,” she said about drug court.
She is expected to complete drug court in June, something that makes her very proud.
While she’s not proud of her past, she credits it with helping her to become the strong woman she is today. She plans to continue living her life in recovery one day at a time.
“I want to get used to being on my own before I make any decisions about my life,” she said. “I’m going to always have to work at this. I’m always going to be an addict, but I can at least be a recovering addict.”