Multiple studies have shown that people who complete drug treatment court, a special court for drug addicted offenders, are less likely to reoffend in the first year or two after their release.Īt Belle Terre, criminal-justice referrals account for the majority of residents. There’s little doubt that quality care in a controlled setting can help. criminal justice system sent 580,000 people to drug treatment. Underwritten by taxpayers, they work with the courts and probation departments to rehabilitate offenders. We do nothing all day.” Martin Szczupakįacilities like Belle Terre are part of that solution. “This place is basically a super minimum security prison camp. He initially expressed hopes for his treatment at Belle Terre, a Phoenix House facility. BETTER DAYS: A photograph of Martin Szczupak, provided by his fiancée. In the 2016 presidential campaign, candidates from Democrat Hillary Clinton to Republican Chris Christie have hailed drug treatment as a smart way to tackle the problems of prison overcrowding and excessive sentencing. Sending addicts to treatment rather than jail or prison for nonviolent offenses has become increasingly popular across the U.S. One day after that, police visited Szczupak’s mother, Inez, at her Staten Island home to tell her that her son had been found dead from a drug overdose. Three weeks later, he walked out of Belle Terre without permission. “You deserve better than that.” He didn’t want to use drugs anymore, he wrote, “but realistically the odds are against me.” He felt he would be stuck going from “dead end job and rehab and jail until I eventually drop dead,” he wrote in a letter to his fiancée. “I’m gonna be out … before I even know it,” he wrote.īy December 2012, he had given up on the treatment program. “We do nothing all day.” Still, Szczupak was hopeful. ![]() “This place is basically a super minimum security prison camp,” Szczupak wrote in an Aug. Nor were residents receiving the 40 hours a week of therapeutic services OASAS required. Residents trafficked in drugs, cigarettes and other contraband. In each case, Belle Terre resumed admissions after Phoenix House submitted a “corrective action plan” to regulators.Įven so, residents and a counselor at Belle Terre when Szczupak was there said little had changed. In the two years prior to Szczupak’s arrival, New York’s Office of Alcoholism and Substance Abuse Services (OASAS) had twice closed Belle Terre to new admissions after inspectors discovered illegal drug use, insufficient treatment and bad record-keeping, among many other regulatory violations. When Szczupak arrived in June 2012, all was not well behind Belle Terre’s stately walls. Click here to subscribe.NEW YORK – Martin Szczupak had already been in and out of rehab when, for a misdemeanor possession charge, a judge sent the 21-year-old heroin addict to a century-old estate in the wooded hills of upstate New York for another chance to clean up.īelle Terre, the former home of a 19th-century copper baron, housed the 168-bed Phoenix House Delaware County Center, a private, nonprofit residential drug treatment facility. With that in mind, the Saskatoon StarPhoenix has created an Afternoon Headlines newsletter that can be delivered daily to your inbox to help make sure you are up to date with the most vital news of the day. From politics to crime and everything in between, it can be hard to keep up. The news seems to be flying at us faster all the time. Items seized by Saskatoon police as part of a months-long drug trafficking investigation. Police say the investigation is continuing and additional charges are pending. ![]() Two additional women were released without charges. A 35-year-old woman was arrested on unrelated warrants. Two men, ages 40 and 43, are facing numerous charges related to drug trafficking, weapons, possession of the proceeds of crime and failing to comply with court-imposed conditions. As well, drug trafficking paraphernalia and approximately $2,434 in cash were seized. Officers also seized three 3D printing machines, and an eCard printer with blank plastic cards to manufacture counterfeit identification. Thiessen Way, officers seized 318 grams of methamphetamine, 385 games of fentanyl, 23.5 grams of psilocybin, 1.8 litres of gamma-hydroxybutyrate (GHB), 48 vyvanse (amphetamine) pills, four LSD pills and 10 temazepam (benzo) pills.Ī prohibited semi-automatic pistol with a loaded magazine and additional ammunition, a 12-gauge pump-action shotgun with flash suppressor and two bladed weapons were also seized. Manage Print Subscription / Tax Receiptīetween the vehicle and home, located in the 300 block of J.J.
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