Speaker 1: WBEZ features is supported by the poetry foundation, presenting poetry events with artists including Ben Pokery, Deshun Smith, Chemie Lobby and Chicago poet laureate Avery are Young plus an Awl poetry library and a new exhibition on Harriet Monroe who founded poetry magazine in Chicago in 1912. All open to the public details at the poetry foundation dot org slash visit.

Speaker 2: You're listening to WBEZ today marks the end of cash bail in Illinois and the start of a new system for handling defendants awaiting trial. The change means the judges will no longer be allowed to hold people in jail pretrial unless they pose a safety risk. Core a flight risk. It's a move that's been championed by criminal justice reform advocates and democratic state officials. But counties in more rural parts of Illinois are apprehensive about the change, particularly when it comes to releasing people charged with drug related offenses. WBEZ says Mawa Iqbal has more. Sheriff

Speaker 3: Devron Oren's cramped office is stacked with cardboard box is filled with cleaning and office supplies,

Speaker 4: my office and up front, pretty much all we have is the back room

Speaker 3: in the back. There's an evidence closet, a processing desk and an interrogation room which says can fit up to three people if they leave the door open. He says they've been trying to get more space for years. We

Speaker 4: don't have those resources because we're a small county that becomes difficult

Speaker 3: or is a sheriff for Cass County and central Illinois. It's about 35 miles west of Springfield. It's a rural farming community with a population of a little over 12,000 or has worked in law enforcement hear since 2009. And he says the biggest problems they face have and continue to be tied to meth addiction. It

Speaker 4: rips families apart and drugs destroy lives, particularly methamphetamine. It has been our biggest downfall here and it's destroyed the lives of lots of people. You know, I've talked to the people that sell the drugs, they don't come in and turn their self in. But when they get caught, a lot of them are thrilled to happen because they can't get away from it. He

Speaker 3: says in Cass County, they don't have enough money for a lot of things. They need more space for the sheriff, more stuff for kids to do and more help for people struggling with addiction. There are only two outpatient treatment centers and the nearest inpatient rehab is about a 30 minute drive away or says it takes week's just to get seen. If you

Speaker 4: want to go to drug rehab, you have to call, you get on a waiting list and sometimes it's the only chance you get to wants to get them in and the day they wanted to go, that may be the time that you can't get them in that day and then they May never go.

Speaker 3: That's why he is worried about what the end of cash bail is going to mean for the county's drug problem and for the people in the thick of it under the new law, unless a gun is used, people facing drug related charges will not go to jail while awaiting trial. And that's a big change for Cass County or says it's not perfect but holding someone in jail gives them a place away from the drugs. And it's a way for the sheriff to make sure they are actually go to treatment once a bed opens up. Like I said,

Speaker 4: you can't, you can't get them in quickly. So a person is arrested today, they're, they're addicted to drugs and we don't know, we don't keep them, you know, we send them back out in the public but tell them okay, we're going to get you into rehab. Can't track him down or, you know, they don't want to go. Whereas if they're in jail, we know where they're at, they can't just leave, they're able to get off the drugs a little bit and then go, what they

Speaker 5: need is drugs. So let's find that for them and not pretend that locking them in a cage is some kind of substitute for

Speaker 3: that. That's been riddled. He's the Director of Criminal Justice Policy and the value of Illinois. He's worked with people who are detained and incarcerated on drug related charges and he says jail should never be part of a person's treatment. Riddell says ending cash bail will be good for people who struggle with drug addiction,

Speaker 5: forcing somebody to withdraw from the drug that they have been using does not in and of itself do anything to affect a change in that individual where there like embarking on a path of recovery. It's simply makes them more vulnerable to harm if and when they used drugs

Speaker 3: again, believes taking the blunt instrument of jail away will make counties look at other options outside of the jail's like investing in rehab center's and harm reduction. That's what Diana Figel wants to. She runs a community hope and recovery center located in a shopping strip near the Beardstown Historical Square there, the only drug treatment providers and Cass County, aside from the county health Department, she says they do everything they can to make people feel comfortable seeking help, especially in a small community, in the rural community. Everybody knows everybody. It's difficult and I always tell staff, one of the hardest things for people to do is walk through those front doors. Figel has worked for the recovery center for almost 30 years. She says when someone comes in with drug problems, you can't just treat their addiction. They have to treat the whole person people. Sometimes they're just living day to day, they don't have a place to stay. Their family has been tore apart, they're going through a divorce, they've lost their job. The center recently lost a staffer. So the drug treatment program is down to just two people, a director and then one part time worker that's made the waiting list for the program's even longer. She says to really address the problem here in Cass County, they need to expand. She wants to build a team of people to do outreach in counseling in the schools would also love to have beds for people needing intensive inpatient treatment. Those are all, I mean, we talk about it but you just got to have the money and Sheriff Oren meet up sometimes to talk about the county's drug problem and what can be done to fix it. They came up with the idea last month of having police officers handout magnets to people when they make drug arrests. The magnets have a list of substance use resources in and around the county. It's a pretty short list and they'd like it to be longer. Ultimately fickle and agree with Riddell from the A cell. You on a lot of things says he knows jail is not the best place for a person who is addicted to drugs and that it costs more money to jail someone than to invest in prevention.

Speaker 4: I'm not a guy that likes studies or, you know, right stuff down. But I just, from my experience, if we did a massive funding of mental health treatment in Illinois, I think are a lot of our problems would go

Speaker 3: away. But right now Warren says jail is just the best of the bad options he's got for handling folks with drug offenses. He does not support eliminating cash bail. He thinks judges should have the discretion to detain people but the new system it's here and or is calling on Illinois state lawmakers for more funding for drug treatment. Mawa Iqbal, WBEZ News.

Speaker 2: This is WBEZ.

Kate Verrant