Nevada County Grand Jury
• 2004-2005
The Price You Pay for Meth Reason for Investigation Methamphetamine use (meth) has become epidemic in Nevada County
⚠️ Translation Notice: This content has been automatically translated. The original English text is the official version. Translation may contain errors.
⚠️ Este contenido ha sido traducido automáticamente. El texto original en inglés es la versión oficial. La traducción puede contener errores.
Findings and Recommendations 10 findings
F1
The District Attorney’s office has an annual budget of almost $2.8 million
No recommendations for this finding
F2
According to the District Attorney’s office, approximately 72% of their criminal caseloads are meth related.
No recommendations for this finding
F3
The Probation Department has an annual budget of approximately $3 million for adult offenders.
No recommendations for this finding
F4
In fiscal year 2003 - 2004, 36% of the people supervised by Probation were substance abuse related offenders.
No recommendations for this finding
F5
The Public Defender’s office has an annual budget of nearly $1.3 million. ______________________________________________________________________________________ Grand Jury 0405 Law Report
No recommendations for this finding
F6
The Public Defender’s office reports that at least 50% of their cases are related to meth.
No recommendations for this finding
F7
The Behavioral Health Department has an annual budget close to $1.8 million for alcohol and drug programs. They provide and oversee treatment of meth users in Nevada County using several sources of funding. The chart below shows the funds used for the treatment of meth users according to the information provided by Behavioral Health staff: Total Used for Meth Source of Funds Treatment Proposition 36 $ 385,000 State General Funds 203,264 Substance Abuse Prevention & 650,069 Treatment Block Grant (SAPT) Total $1,238,333
No recommendations for this finding
F8
The average daily population of Wayne Brown Correctional Facility (WBCF) is 200 inmates of which 90 (45%) are incarcerated on meth or meth related charges. The cost to the taxpayer is $58 per day to house an inmate. Based on these figures the annual cost to house inmates for meth related charges in WBCF would be approximately $2 million.
No recommendations for this finding
F9
Many individuals and departments funded by the taxpayers are involved in the arrest, prosecution and incarceration of a meth user. These include city police, sheriff’s department, judges, bailiff, court reporter, court staff, probation officer, district attorney staff and public defender staff. The cost to prosecute, defend, incarcerate and monitor the probation of one person was as follows: Department Total Court (Judges, court reporter, bailiff and staff salaries) $ 4,205 District Attorney’s Office 2,600 Public Defender’s Office 2,835 Probation Officer 6,075 Probation Department – other 1,143 Wayne Brown Correctional Facility 6,496 Sheriff’s Department – transportation 1,565 Total $24,919 The above is solely staffing costs, and does not include operating and overhead expenses, except for WBCF. ______________________________________________________________________________________ Grand Jury 0405 Law Report
Related Recommendations (4)
R1
The Board of Supervisors should take the lead in the war on methamphetamine in Nevada County.
R2
In order to fully grasp the county’s methamphetamine problem, the Board of Supervisors should establish a process to systematically collect and evaluate the costs to the county related to the methamphetamine epidemic.
R3
The Board of Supervisors should aggressively pursue grant funding to address the methamphetamine problem in Nevada County.
R4
The Board of Supervisors should mandate departments and agencies to freely share statistics and information with each other regarding methamphetamine in order to coordinate programs to maximize county resources.
F10
It should also be noted the person whose case was followed for this report has been arrested and prosecuted numerous times for meth related offenses. CONCLUSIONS
No recommendations for this finding
Conclusions 2
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CL1 Page 3Left unabated the meth epidemic will have serious and growing negative economic consequences. Long-term, it could hurt tourism and ultimately discourage new business from locating in Nevada County. It would also raise the cost of living and working in the county without offsetting benefits. Most importantly, meth will destroy more families and lives.
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CL2 Page 3While this report addresses some of the ongoing expenses to the taxpayer for meth related activities, there are many that were unable to be determined due to the lack of specific data collection by local law enforcement. These include the costs of the continuing, sometimes life long, physical and mental health services for the meth user, the user’s family and the user’s victims. There are also environmental costs and statewide expenses for the incarceration of inmates sentenced to state prison.
No Responses Found 1
Government entities assigned to respond to this report. No response documents have been linked in our database.
Nevada County Board of Supervisors
Elected County Office