T-R PHOTO BY ROBERT MAHARRY — Jacob Hansen, second from left, graduated from Marshall County’s Enhanced Supervision Court (ESC), also known as Drug Court, on Friday afternoon. Pictured alongside him are Judge John Haney, left, Hansen’s father Jay, middle, his stepmother Jamie Bland, second from right, and his brother-in-law Dan Speese, right.

As he sat inside the grand courtroom of the Marshall County Courthouse surrounded by friends, family and some of the professionals who had helped him get to where he is now on Friday afternoon, Jacob Hansen announced that he had been clean for 572 days to a round of thunderous applause.

With the blessing of Judge John Haney and his team of parole officers and advocates, Hansen graduated from Enhanced Supervision Court (ESC), also known as Drug Court, which has been operating in Marshall County since 2016 and provides an alternative to long-term incarceration through treatment, testing, electronic monitoring, weekly meetings with parole officers and counseling over a period of at least 14 months.

“It’s a challenge, but they’re doing good,” Haney said.

It was an understandably emotional day for Hansen, who had spent most of his teens and 20s addicted to narcotics and in trouble with the law, but after about a year and a half in the program, he’s ready to take the next step in life with the full support of the people who care about him most. He plans to move from his hometown of Marshalltown to the Des Moines area to be with his girlfriend and her kids.

Hansen told the audience that before ESC, he had been in and out of prison with no direction in life. He couldn’t keep a job, didn’t have a driver’s license, never completed programs with the Substance Abuse Treatment Unit of Central Iowa (SATUCI), missed PO appointments and often failed urine tests. His family was tired of hearing the same stories and promises that it would never happen again while he chased “his next high” and tried to figure out ways to make money without employment.

“ESC has given me the confidence to be the man I thought I could not be. Before ESC, I had never had over 30 days clean. ESC has taught me to be OK with not always doing something and to be OK with being alone around the house,” he said.

He also recalled the experience he gained taking a job as a dishwasher at the local BBQ restaurant Smokin’ G’s and learning a lot in the process. He hopes to work in the trades in Des Moines but knows his recovery will always need to come first, laying out a maintenance plan to the judge with a wide variety of support mechanisms and contacts along with the goal of finding a home church.

Despite taking some light ribbing from Judge Haney for his University of Texas fandom throughout the ceremony (though Haney did ultimately gift him a longhorn wall mount as a token of appreciation and noted that it symbolizes good luck, spiritual guidance, tenacity, determination and strength), Hansen couldn’t help but feel the overwhelming sense of just how proud the people in the room — from his fellow Drug Court classmates to family members to several local officials — were of the fact that he had made it through to the other side.

“It’s life changing. It saved my life. I’m very grateful for this program. I feel like I’m just myself again,” Hansen told the T-R afterward.

He also elaborated on what finally pushed him to make a change once and for all.

“I was just tired of the same thing. I wanted something different. I wanted my family back in my life, and I knew that I just had to buckle down and do it; otherwise, my life would never change,” Hansen said.

Haney commended Hansen for his thorough and detailed graduation application and all of the progress he had made since he started the program in September of 2022, and along with the longhorns, he also gifted him with a framed poster that simply reads “You got this” signed by members of the ESC team. During a subsequent interview, the judge said he quickly sensed that Hansen had a true motivation to move his life in a better direction, specifically noting how dedicated he became to his job at Smokin’ G’s and even went back to work weekends in the kitchen when they were short staffed.

“That just demonstrated to me what kind of guy Jacob was down inside, and he’s a faith-driven kid… but he’s also very family oriented and his family is terribly important,” Haney said. “And I think all those things, he’s pulled them together and those are such great supports for him to be successful now and in the future.”

ESC/Drug Court was launched as an unfunded program without legal authority from the Iowa Supreme Court back in 2016, but with the support of the Marshall County Attorney’s Office, the Marshalltown Police Department, SATUCI, Center Associates, the State Public Defender’s Office and other cooperating agencies, it has blossomed and grown in the years since from five initial participants to the 13 or 14 involved in the current class. It also received a three-year, $550,000 federal funding grant from the Department of Justice (DOJ) in 2021.

“This is by far one of the most successful types of programs to assist people who are struggling with substance abuse, alcohol abuse (and) mental health problems to help them recover their lives and get stable, get healthy and live law abiding lives,” Haney said.

The judge added that without the Drug Court program, every single one of the participants in the room would be in prison. He also stressed the financial benefit to taxpayers: the average annual cost per drug court participant ($6,985) is about a third of the average cost to imprison the same person for a year ($22,650).

“The beauty of a program of this nature is the success. Doing programming of this nature creates great outcomes, so you get the best bang for your buck and folks who are in programming like this have high success rates. They find tools to assist them in recovery,” Haney said.

Marshalltown Police Chief Mike Tupper, who attended the ceremony Friday, shared his thoughts on why the MPD supports the initiative and why he feels it’s been so effective locally.

“We support this program because it works. We can’t arrest our way out of the problems addiction causes for our community. Drug courts help participants recover from addiction and prevent future criminal offenses while also reducing the burden and costs of repeatedly processing people through the criminal justice system. Quite simply, participants receive the help and treatment they need and are significantly less likely to reoffend after completing this intensive program,” he said. “This program has been great for Marshall County and should be duplicated throughout Iowa.”

While some graduates still struggle and relapse after they’ve completed Drug Court, Haney said the vast majority avoid committing further crimes other than the use of the substances themselves. Before he granted Hansen’s graduation request, Haney also presented Probation and Parole Officer Rick Day with a special certificate of recognition for his role in the Drug Court program.

Above all else, Haney hopes the program and its success stories can illustrate the concept that no one battling addiction has to be alone in the fight.

“Reach out. Don’t be afraid to ask for help because there are people in our community, and we’ve got a wonderful community with resources that are available who are struggling to get their lives back in order,” he said. “So I just encourage people who are struggling to overcome their fear and take that step to ask for help.”

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Contact Robert Maharry at (641) 753-6611 ext. 255 or rmaharry@timesrepublican.com.