Brooklyn Program To Drop Charges For Drug-Offenders Who Seek Help

BROOKLYN, NY — Low-level drug offenders in Brooklyn could get their charges dropped if they seek help under a new pilot program, District Attorney Eric Gonzalez announced Tuesday.

The Collaborative Legal Engagement Assistance Response, dubbed Project CLEAR, offers treatment options to people arrested on drug possession charges, before their arraignment, Gonzalez said.

"Often, prosecuting individuals who are arrested with small amounts of narcotics, used to feed their habits, does little to help them," Gonzalez said in a statement.

"By offering tools that aid in treating their addiction and could prevent a potential overdose, Project Brooklyn CLEAR can save lives and send people on the road to recovery."

The program started as a pilot in the middle of last month at six precincts with high rates of overdoes in the borough, including Sunset Park's 72nd Precinct and Crown Heights' 71st Precinct.

Under the program, a person arrested for criminal possession of a controlled substance and given a desk appearance ticket will be met at the precinct by a peer coach from the EAC Network, who will give them a naloxone kit and offer to set them up in a detox center or with local treatment services, Gonzalez said.

If the arrested person agrees to seek help, the DA's office will postpone his or her ticket for 30 days with the EAC Network assessing progress along the way. Otherwise, the person would be ordered to appear in court within seven days and the case will continue as usual, Gonzalez said.

The DA will drop the case and seal the charges of participants who have "meaningfully participated" in treatment within the 30 days before their court date. More than 700 people arrested last year in the pilot precincts would be eligible for the new program, Gonzalez said.

So far, about 30 people were offered help so far since it launched, with nearly half taking part in Project CLEAR, a spokesman for the DA's office said. None of the people in the pilot have been in it long enough to have their charges dropped.

Project CLEAR was based off a similar program that started last year in Staten Island, one of the hardest hit by the opioid epidemic in the city, which has already seen some success.

In 2017, 338 people arrested in Staten Island were offered the borough's version of the program, called HOPE, and 90 percent of those who engaged in treatment had their charges dropped, a spokesman for the Staten Island District Attorney's office said.

The city has been battling an opioid epidemic, made worse in recent years by the introduction of a powerful synthetic opioid fentanyl, for the past decade.

In 2016, 297 people died from overdose deaths around Brooklyn, up from 223 the previous year, with opioids largely to blame in those cases, according to the city's Department of Health. Fentanyl, which is 50 times more powerful than heroin, was linked to 44 percent of those cases across the city.

Photo courtesy of the Brooklyn District Attorney's office.