Rural America: Vermont is finding a way to deliver.

• Author: Hewitt, Elizabeth
• Position: Special Report on Mental Health

You could be forgiven for looking at Vermont's heroin crisis--the surging addiction rates, the climbing death tolls, the related crime--and feeling like you've read this book before. After all, rural states across the country are going through the exact same thing. Centers for Disease Control data shows that drug overdose death rates, up nationwide, are particularly high in the most rural parts of the country. Resources for mental illness and substance abuse are limited, and many people who struggle with those issues end up in the criminal justice system.

"It was the perfect storm," Governor Peter Shumlin said. "Rising addiction, rising prison population, lack of money to keep doing what we were doing, and a real sense of social injustice being served to people who were suffering from a disease that led to petty crime."

Vermont is writing a new chapter, though, with a series of policy responses that have helped lower incarceration rates by keeping addicts in treatment and out of prison. While the shift in policy and attitude began with the previous administration, Shumlin made criminal justice reform a key part of his successful 2010 campaign for governor and has carried the initiative through his second and third terms, dedicating his entire 2014 State of the State address to opiate abuse.

"We must bolster our current approach to addiction with more common sense," he said at the time. "We must address it as a public health crisis, providing treatment and support, rather than simply doling out punishment, claiming victory, and moving on to our next conviction."

Now, if you get arrested on a nonviolent charge in Vermont, there's a good chance you'll never do time behind bars. You might end up in addiction treatment, or with your case on a special drug treatment docket. Circumstances depending, you might not even end up with a charge on your record. Three Vermont counties have drug courts, one has a mental health court, and another has a DUI court. The treatment dockets are part of a mosaic of initiatives that reroute defendants away from prison and into appropriate treatment for mental health and substance abuse treatment.

These treatment courts reach people when they are already much of the way through the judicial system. Participants in drug court are often charged with drug-related offenses or drug-motivated ones, like theft. The court is specifically for high-risk, high-need individuals, who face the possibility of prison time if they...