Cover Story
The demons of drink
by Rebecca Macfie
Alcohol abuse is behind most crime, and New Zealanders are paying a huge price for failing to come to grips with the problem.
Fifteen-year-old Lisa* sits demurely in the dock of the Christchurch Youth Drug Court and tells Judge Jane McMeeken she hasn’t had a drink for two weeks. For a girl who started drinking at 10, and by 14 was getting through two bottles of wine and eight bourbons a day, this is progress.
Like most of the other young people who have been diverted from the Christchurch Youth Court into the Drug Court, Lisa is an alcoholic. She’s small and quietly spoken, harmless looking. But as are many of her criminal peers, she is violent when drunk. She has been stealing since she was 12, has committed serious assaults, and is facing a prison term of up to 14 years for aggravated robbery if she fails to complete the Drug Court process.
Her diversion into the Drug Court – an option limited to youth offenders who are dependent on alcohol or other drugs and have committed serious crimes – means there is a chance she will go clean and pick up the pieces of her shattered education.
Instead of being locked up, Drug Court kids appear every fortnight before McMeeken and a dedicated multidisciplinary team that includes a social worker, mental health worker and police youth aid officer. Between appearances they receive treatment for their addiction, whittle away at their mandated hours of community work and attend training courses. They are intensively monitored by police and social workers, and are often subject to curfews – Lisa has to be home by 8.00pm.
“If you can deal with their addiction, they have a chance,” says McMeeken, who also sits in the Youth and Family courts. She estimates 70% of young defendants are drunk when they offend, and the proportion is higher among those who commit serious violence. Despite the community alarm over methamphetamine, “alcohol is by far the biggest problem”. And she points out “there is no point sending a recidivist alcoholic to jail without treatment, because they still have the illness of alcoholism when they come out. You have to have treatment.”
It’s not easy. Lisa has been comprehensively assessed by an addiction specialist, who has also set out a treatment plan. She needs to get into Christchurch’s Odyssey House alcohol and drug treatment centre, but there is a waiting list. Odyssey, a Ministry of Health-funded facility, is the only one of its type in the South Island, and it simply has too few places to cope with the demand.
Among the 13 kids who file before McMeeken and her Drug Court team at this regular fortnightly hearing, there is ample evidence that when treatment is provided, change is possible. Sixteen-year-old Jackie, from a family of heavy drinkers and brawlers, used to get drunk constantly and suffered memory blackouts. She’s up on aggravated robbery charges. Today, she tells the court she went to town on Saturday night with friends, but pulled out after three drinks and went home. McMeeken congratulates her for making a good decision. “Keep up the good work and learn from your mistakes. I’ll see you in a fortnight.”
Fifteen-year-old Megan is an alcoholic from a gang family. Her ambition was to join the Bloods street gang. She hasn’t attended a mainstream school for about 18 months, but at Odyssey she is back in the classroom where her teacher describes her as a “compliant and respectful” student with an “excellent” attitude.
Ben, a dope smoker whose mother has mental health problems and whose father is in jail, is up on dishonesty and driving charges. At Odyssey he has discovered a talent for cooking. Today he baked yo-yo biscuits for the judge; he tells her he wants to become a chef. She discusses a plan to ease him out of Odyssey and back into the community. He looks pleased with himself when she tells him that given his good progress and cooking skills – and provided he controls his drug habit – the future looks exciting.
Virtually all the girls have been sexually abused, but until the drinking and drug-taking stops, that can’t be addressed, says McMeeken. Most of today’s line-up are sexually active. Some have prostituted themselves to feed their alcohol habit.
Everyone in the team has a word of advice and warning about the consequences of relapses and stupid decisions. Maria, a 16-year-old alcoholic born to glue-sniffing teenage parents, has been caught snorting prescription drugs. “Don’t blow it,” she is told: a prison cell is waiting and plenty of other kids are ready to take her place at Odyssey.
Pale-faced James, who is charged with aggravated robbery, is given a severe dressing-down for missing his last appearance, and is told he looks unwell and needs to get to bed earlier. He is questioned closely about a new girlfriend and reminded of the judge’s rule: never have sex with someone whose surname you don’t know.
The Drug Court is based on the notion of therapeutic jurisprudence: the idea that judges can change behaviour through a combination of sanctions and treatment. Judge Tony Fitzgerald has established a similar programme, called the Intensive Monitoring Group, in the Auckland Youth Court.
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