It is actually possible to
dramatically change the way in which we
tackle problems of addiction and public
disorder and public health. My name's
Lisa Daugaard
and I work in criminal justice reform.
I work on alternatives to the kinds of
problems that traditionally we've used
jail and prosecution to address. We had
been litigating the question of the
racial discrimination in Seattle drug
arrests for a number of years. We started
a dialogue with the police department
and the prosecutor's office and civil
rights leaders about reimagining, well, if
the police are called and there are real
law violations caused by addiction,
caused by extreme poverty what would be
a better response than locking that
person up, tearing their family apart and
making it incredibly unlikely that they
were going to be able, you know, to work
and take care of themselves and their
family in the future? The LEAD program
allows police officers to connect the
individual immediately to high-quality
community-based care. The officer is just
basically saying to the individual "What
caused you to be in this position?" And
whatever that individual says the
officer then responds "Well would you
like some help with that?" And if the
individual says yes then the officer makes a phone call and within 30 minutes there's
a handoff to a really skilled social
worker. LEAD has had a really positive
impact on public safety and what we know
from a University of Washington
evaluation is that the folks who got to
participate in LEAD were 58 percent less
likely to commit a new crime. Also it
costs less, also people did better in
terms of housing and employment. One of
the most profound things I've seen in
the course of working with LEAD is the
willingness of people within
institutions like a police department to
grapple with some of the most sensitive
critiques.  Because they are working in
partnership with people, a paradigm shift
is possible. There are 59 jurisdictions
around the country from coast to coast,
really big cities, small towns and
counties, that are implementing LEAD.
Communities can really adapt this
approach to the problems that they're
struggling with and make it responsive
to those issues. We've seen that around
the country.
*upbeat piano music*
