As head of Vilas County Social Services, Kate Gardner sees the impact of drugs in her community every day.
“Probably 85-90 percent of the children that we’ve had to put in [foster] care have parents who are struggling with addiction,” she said.
Gardner hopes gaining a drug court for Vilas County Circuit Court could lead to fewer repeat offenders.
“A drug court is a very cost-effective and kind of efficient, although non-traditional judicial model. It is a really designed to drug addicted criminal offenders and breaking the cycle of drug use,” said Gardner.
She says it wasn’t feasible before with the county only having one judge.
With an election this spring, there will be a second judge by next fall and with that person, the extra support that a drug court needs.
Drug courts are designed give support to those facing charges and are addicted to drugs. It’s a voluntary program.
“That’s done through routine judicial appearances, intensive supervision, and a process of team decision making. This is the team wrapping around each individual so that they’ve got that outside support,” said Gardner. “It relies on evidence-based principles. It really works much better than what we have right now to promote community safety.”
According to the Wisconsin Department of Justice, there are drug court programs in 38 counties, including one in the Lac du Flambeau and Forest County Potawatomi tribal courts.
Gardner believes a drug court will compliment treatment programs already in the county and will hopefully identify gaps they work to fix.
“There’s no one magic bullet for addiction problems in a community. You have to come at it from more than one direction,” she said.
Gardner doesn’t know which kind of drug court Vilas County will get, that will be decided by a committee that still needs to be formed.
Gardner says Sheriff Joe Fath, Judge Martha Milanowski, and District Attorney Karl Hayes are in support of a drug court.
The process is still in the early stages.
