Staff photo / Chris McBride Trumbull County Common Pleas Judge Cynthia Rice in her office after a day of hearings in criminal court.

WARREN — After six months working on a new specialized docket, Trumbull County Common Pleas Judge Cynthia Rice finally will roll out the Women’s Therapeutic Docket next week.

Her goal is to extend a lifeline to women arrested on drug-related offenses or in scenarios where their drug usage or mental health factored into their arrest.

“The concept is that these women have been abused or traumatized in their life by whatever means, and it affects their viewpoint and outlook on life. Our goal is to build them up, get them their self-confidence, encourage them to get clean and be a contributing member of society,” Rice said.

The program is set to begin July 10 with its first meeting. The plan, Rice outlined, will be to have an “all-women courtroom” with women legal counsel and service providers to create what the judge described as a “safe haven for women to deal with their problems.”

Participants will go through five phases, according to Rice, that will be needed for them to graduate. The phases will be the minimum amount of time needed to participate. The first phase will be attending docket sessions and additional weekly meetings.

Phases two through five requires participants to comply with treatment provided for up to 120 days leading up to graduation — that means participating in drug testing, weekly payments and being employed or in the docket’s employment program.

With a woman-centric focus, Rice said she hopes to create an environment where women can feel understood. She also said she hopes to build a sense of community and camaraderie among the participants.

“We’re bringing in women that have the same problems together and we want them to be peer support for each other,” Rice said. “They have each other’s phone numbers, they help each other in the event that someone in the program wants to use or if something negative happens in their life.”

With a little help from the four pillars — the court system, probation, community service and peers — Rice said the program is designed to provide much-needed, seldomly offered help from all angles.

ORIGIN

As a drug prosecutor in the early 1990s, Rice said she felt while people were being sent to prison for drug offenses, “we didn’t help anyone.” She sought to combat this by starting the Pharmaceutical Diversion Unit in Trumbull County in 1991.

The program came about during the early stages of what would become the opioid crisis, which became more prevalent in 1996 during what’s considered to be the first wave of the epidemic.

“I knew as a drug prosecutor that about a third of the drugs people were abusing were pharmaceutical that are prescription,” Rice said.

As the prevalence of fentanyl has increased, the judge said more defandants encounter the highly addictive substance than they seem to realize.

“We get people on probation that say they only smoked weed but test positive for fentanyl,” Rice said. “They don’t realize they’re getting their drugs laced for a bigger high and becoming addicted. They’re dealing with that and didn’t do it on purpose.”

Rice said educating participants on the risks they engage with is another central focus of the docket.

“It’s a more therapeutic approach designed to recognize that this is an issue that people need treatment and help in various forms,” she said.

The program will consist of a “treatment team” overseen by Rice. That team will include court personnel, law enforcement and other local organizations that will meet weekly prior to docket sessions. Each team member will provide input to one another based on their focus.

OUTLINING THE PROGRAM

The team provides updates and information about offenders’ compliance with treatment and gives recommendations on treatment regimens as needed.

Rice stated that both the Trumbull County Prosecutor’s Office and Public Defender’s Office are welcome to attend meetings; participants have the right under the program’s provisions for their legal counsel to attend treatment team meetings that discuss their case.

Participants are required to attend the specialized docket sessions inside the courtroom, which take place every Monday at noon. During those sessions, only participants are welcomed into the courtroom unless given permission to allow family and friends, or during graduation from the docket.

They also will be permitted to attend group or solo office visits.

Everyone involved will have to attend primary treatment, sober support meetings, recovery support groups and therapeutic peer-based recovery meetings, along with community programs.

ENTRY STANDARDS

Any woman referred for a presentence investigation or intervention in lieu of conviction will be screened to determine whether she’ll be accepted into the docket. A review of participants’ relevant criminal history, substance abuse, prior treatment, along with family and social history, will be used to make a determination.

The expected participants also will go through a required Ohio Risk Assessment System, which will take two to four weeks to complete.

During that time, they must meet these standards:

• ORAS score of low / moderate (15) or higher;

• Have a current alcohol / substance abuse issue or alcohol / substance abuse was a significant factor in the commission of the offense;

• Mental health participants need official an diagnosis of bipolar disorder, anxiety, depression or PTSD;

Referrals will be reviewed by the Women’s Therapeutic Docket judge and treatment team prior to acceptance.

SERVICES

Rice explained that an advisory committee will include local organizations the docket partners with, such as Trumbull County Mental Health and Recovery Board, Children Services, counselors and educators.

Those entities will hold a meeting prior to docket sessions to address root causes for why participants offended, treatment plans, etc.

An OVI track also will be offered.

“I’ve seen quite a few women with felony OVI offenses. We have to get to the root of the problem of what causes them to be here and solve it,” Rice said.

To help them, Rice said it will take the offender accepting it first.

“You have to want it. That’s the No. 1 thing, but if they know we want it for them and will work toward it with them, it gives them that inspiration to work on themselves,” Rice said.

As a member of the Ohio Judicial Conference Executive Committee for law and procedure, Rice said she’s “constantly bombarded” with legislators working on ways to keep people out of prison.

“They don’t want these people sitting in prison, and we’re realizing it doesn’t do anyone any good. If they’re not violent or going to hurt someone, what good are we doing?”

Each participant who successfully completes treatment is presented with a token, certificate and docket entry that terminates community control or that will dismiss charges, if in lieu of conviction.