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Treatment courts report provider capacity problems, DIMS rollout delayed; veterans program reaches 100 graduates
Summary
Treatment courts staff reported program-level metrics — drug court active caseloads, application/denial counts and provider constraints — and said a provider (NorthCare) is temporarily at capacity; the DIMS drug-testing integration is being tested and full staff training is likely delayed until August.
Oklahoma County — Members of the Treatment Courts Advisory Board heard on July 9 that treatment-court programs are operating with steady participant numbers but face capacity and data-integration challenges.
A presenter said drug court currently has about 370 active participants, with 37 recent additions, 19 graduations and nine modifications over the past months. "We've had 71 total applications for the last few months with 30 approvals and 76 denials," the presenter reported (numbers given in the meeting transcript reflect the presenter’s stated counts). The presenter said denials are often for public-safety reasons or other screening criteria.
Board members also heard that one provider serving the mental-health court, identified in the meeting as NorthCare, informed staff it would not accept participants for the month because it had reached capacity. "We were notified at the end of last month that one of them was not going to be able to take any participants this month because they were at capacity," said Butch Raymond (speaker recorded in roll call as Butch Raymond), who noted the reduction leaves fewer providers and could slow movement through the mental-health court.
Staff updated the board on the DIMS data system and drug-testing integration. According to staff, participant and provider assignments are in the system and the Hunter Labs connection for participant drug testing is being tested; once drug-testing histories are available, staff training will follow. "We are supposed to have the drug testing history in by, I think, the end of next week," staff said, but added that training and full rollout are likely to be delayed by one to two weeks and now targeted for August.
The veterans treatment report delivered at the same meeting noted eight new participants since the last meeting, a current total of 54 participants (47 active) and a milestone of 100 total graduates since the program began; staff said the program’s aspirational capacity is about 75.
Members deferred two membership items (adding an additional judge and selecting an attorney at large) to a future meeting and approved the previous meeting minutes; no new program funding or ordinance actions were taken. Staff indicated they will return with more details on provider capacity and the DIMS testing timeline at upcoming meetings.
