RISE 26 - Keynote Address by Kenneth Osbourne
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Great afternoon There's just a lot of you out there. How many of you this is your first conference? So I gotta tell you in all honesty, you know, having been in that, I never thought such a moment as this for me would happen. I was used to being one of the presenters, you know, that one of the people you go without, you know, after the big con- after the guest speaker speaks and does their thing, and you go off to one of the side rooms and you hear one of the presentations.
I'm used to being in that role, so when I tell you that it is a blessing and an honor to be here with you, I really mean that from the depths of my heart. So before I go any further, can we please give one more round of applause to Deana?
I want you to sit with what you've witnessed for just a moment because in the rush of the conference, the breakout sessions, the data presentations, the policy debates, it can be easy to forget that every conversation we have here, at its core, is about a human being, a person with a name, a family, a story that almost ended very differently.
W- what you have heard, though, is not a miracle. It's not an exception to the rule. Dina's story and countless other stories like hers are exactly why we do this work. When I tell you about being the stuff of miracles, you know, I'm a just a guy from the... grew up on the West Side of Chicago in the projects in a single female-headed household with four other brothers who was a nerdy kid and did good in school but took a sharp left turn off the road of rightness, right?
And then someone with, with the promise of hope and po- positive possibility poured into me, and I got back on the right path. And so I stand before you forty-one years later, one day at a time, through the grace of a power greater than myself- ... and the hope and power-
Of the people who do this work never imagining such a moment. So if you're new to the field, the possibilities are endless, and dream, please dream and think big. So before I say another word, I want to acknowledge all of you, no matter what your role or your discipline, no matter what stage of the justice system or the type of treatment you specialize in, whether you're someone like myself who's been around for a minute or someone brand new, you are connected to something bigger than your own program.
You create a profound human impact, and that is worth celebrating
So let me take you on a little journey this afternoon. Let's talk about the beginning. How did we get here? Let me take you back to a time when the idea of connecting public safety and public health sounded to many people in the, uh, in the legal establishment like professional heresy. The year, nineteen eighty-nine.
The crack cocaine epidemic was devastating communities and j-- uh, across the country, and jails were overflowing. The same people were cycling in and out of the system, arrested, processed, sentenced, released, and arrested again. Nothing was changing, and the human cost was staggering. In Dade County, Florida, a judge and a prosecutor looked at each other, and they asked a simple question: "What if we tried something completely different?
What if, instead of just processing cases, we try to address the substance use and mental health needs driving criminal behavior? What if the courtroom could be a place of intervention rather than conviction?"
They didn't have a playbook. They didn't have a body of research. They had a vision grounded in humanity and the professional expertise of court and behavioral health personnel, and they had the courage to act on it.
That first drug court, the Miami-Dade Drug Court, established in nineteen eighty-nine, was the crack in the dam. And once it opened, the water started at-- the water started flowing. Soon, jurisdictions across the country were taking note. They too were frustrated and wanted to do something dis-- different. These early programs watched each other, listened, and learned.
They shared ideas and tried new things. They came together to create a national organization to support the growing field. So in 1983, practitioners from all across the country came together to establish what was then called the National Association of Drug Court Professionals, now known to us as All Rise, to build the field, champion the science, and ensure this moment-- movement had a lasting institutional home.
My humble beginnings in this began right here in Davidson County with the Davidson County Drug Court under the guidance at that time of the late Honorable Judge Seth Norman and the m-magnificent team of folk. I was one of those early pioneers and worked with some of the people who went on to become and found, helped to found the National Court-- National Association of Drug Court Professionals.
What those pri-- pioneers created against institutional skepticism, against polit-political headwinds, against the deeply ingrained assumption that people struggling with addiction are simply moral failures, was nothing less than a transformation of how the American justice system understands and responds to human behavior.
They didn't know that they were starting a movement. They just knew they had to try something different. And because they did, because of their courage, because of their creativity and their persistence, we are all here today.
So where are we now? Thirty-five years later, look what has grown from that one courtroom in Miami.
Today, there are more than four thousand treatment courts operating in all fifty states, the District of Columbia, and the United States territories. Together, they serve more than one hundred and fifty thousand persons every single year. And here's what I want you to understand. This is not a monolith, it's an ecosystem.
The original drug court model proved that dre-- addressing substance use through accountability, treatment, and collaboration could transform lives and improve public safety. Over the past thirty-five years, that evidence-based approach has expanded to meet the unique needs of other populations. Today, we have programs that guide parents to achieve recovery while promoting child safety, reunification, and permanency.
Intervention early to redirect youth toward healthy development and long-term success. Restore health and wellness to tribal communities. To make our roads safer by targeting behaviors and substance use that contribute to dangerous behavior by repeat impaired offenders, drivers. Recognize the unique impact of military service and trauma, and to address the underlining-- the underlying behavioral conditions that too often contribute to justice involvement.
But the treatment court model has had an impact beyond the courtroom itself. The principles that made it work, accountability, accountability compare-- a-accountability paired with treatment, multidisciplinary collaboration, supervision, behavioral responses, recovery capital, these didn't stay contained in a single docket.
They moved upstream and downstream. They are found in how law enforcement responds to a crisis on a street corner. They are found in probation and parole, reentry programs, behavioral health systems that used to operate in isolation from the justice system altogether. The model didn't just create more kinds of courts, it changed what we believe is possible at every point where the justice system and a person's life intersect.
Although each model and each program serve a distinct population, they all share the same fundamental principle. The most effective justice system responds with evidence-based strategies that address the underlying factors driving justice involvement. Every one reflects the same foundational insight: that the most infective just-- the most effective justice is justice that treats the whole person, not just the offense.
And because of this, there are people alive today, people raising their children, going to work, paying taxes, being happy, coaching little leagues, because you saw them as a person worth saving.
That is the ecosystem you have built. That is the movement you are a part of. Now I want to speak directly to the four pillars that define our work and that define you as practitioners.
The first one is resilience. Everyone in this room knows addiction is not easy to overcome, that substance use disorder does not pe- make people unworthy of help. It makes them human. We know from decades of neuroscience that addiction changes the brain. We know that returning to use is not moral failure, it is a clinical event.
And we know that the question is not whether someone will struggle, but what surrounds them when they do. Our work answers this question. Every check-in, every court appearance, every drug test, every time a judge says, "I see you, and I'm not giving up," those are not bureaucratic rituals. They are the scaffolding, indeed, the brick and mortar for a life being re-rebuilt.
These are acts of structured resilience. But resilience is not just a participant's responsibility, it belongs to the field. Think about the resilience that has led us to this moment. Think about the debates we've had to win over, over and over with legislators, with skeptics, with other professionals who weren't sure this was the right use of their offices, and yet here we are, stronger, more evidence-based, and more widely replicated than ever.
The resilience of this field mirrors the resilience of the people we serve, and I want you to own that because the fact that treatment courts and other evidence-based interventions are still here thriving is not an accident. It is the product of your relentlessness and your resilience. When we refuse to give up on participants, we are also refusing to give up on the idea that justice can be redemptive.
That is not weakness. That is the most sophisticated position in criminal justice policy today. Pillar number two, transformation
The most visible transformation is the one we celebrate at graduation ceremonies. A person who came to us in crisis, they may have lost their children, their home, and their health, and they stand before the court holding their certificates, surrounded by their children and family members that they have been separated from for years.
That transformation is real, and it is earned, and it is profound.
But now, I wanna spend a moment on the other transformation, the one that happened to us in this system. For most of this history, the American courtroom operated one way, two sides, one outcome, with the judge presiding over the process.
That is... That system exists for a good reason, and it still exists, and it does the essential work of holding people accountable. But that doesn't mean that there aren't areas of our justice system that can't be improved, and that's where we come in. When we ask a multidisciplinary team to come and sit at the same table to work toward the same outcome, we are not rejecting accountability.
We are offering a more effective version of it for the populations that we serve. It's what happens when the science of behavior change gets taken seriously by the rules of evidence. That is a significant shift for an institution that is centuries old, and you have accomplished it.
When treatment providers sit at the same table as probation officers, judges, and attorneys, when police respond to a mental health crisis alongside a clinician instead of alone, when probation officers see themselves as partners in someone's recovery and not just monitors of their compliance, when a defense attorney becomes an advocate for a client's future and not just their case, that is transformation of collaboration, of culture, of outcomes.
Every one of these moments, whether inside a courtroom or far outside of one, is proof of the same idea. A justice system that holds people accountable can also reduce crime, strengthen families, and rebuild communities all at the same time.
I want to be direct with you about something. You know the phrase second chances can sometimes sound soft, maybe even sentimental, like something you might see on a bumper sticker. Anyone who's worked in a treatment court knows what a second chance can do, though. We know that it can break generational cycles of addiction.
We know that it can alter the trajectory of a young person's life. We know that it can give a veteran the chance to live at peace. But I want to speak to each of you specifically about what a second chance means from where you sit. To the judges in this room, your voice is the most powerful therapeutic instrument in the courtroom, not your gavel, not your voice.
When you look a participant in the eye and say, "I see you. I see how hard you're working, and it matters," that lands differently than any prescription, any program, or any intervention
Never underestimate the therapeutic power of judicial acknowledgement. To the prosecutors and district attorneys, every time you choose treatment over incarceration, you are not being easy on crime. You are being precise about it. You are matching the sanction to the science. You are implementing evidence-based approaches that promote accountability and, for certain populations, often achieve better outcomes than incarceration alone.
That takes more sophistication and often more courage than simply seeking the maximum sentence. To community corrections, behavioral health, healthcare, child protection, social services staff, and other community partners, you are the bridge between two cultures that often speak very different languages, treatment and justice.
You carry clinical knowledge into a legal setting, and you carry legal reality into your clinical work. That is uniquely difficult and uniquely essential. This field does not function without you.
To law enforcement, you are frequently the first person a justice-involved individual encounters in a moment of crisis. The referral you make, the phone call you place may be the single intervention that ends a year-long cycle of calls to the same address. Your discretion is not a loophole. It is a lifeline.
Second chances are not charity. They are an investment, and you are the investors. The fourth pillar,
leadership The one that makes all the other ones possible. The leadership you model every day is unlike any other leadership anywhere else in the justice, treatment, and social services system. You may le-- you lead not through authority alone, but through relationship.
That doesn't happen by accident. It happens because leaders in the field prioritize the outcome over the role. I call that courageous collaboration, and it is not given to you when you accept a position. It is a choice you make again and again every time you walk into a courtroom. You are data-driven and heart-led.
You know your completion rates. You know your recidivism numbers. You can defend this model in a legislative budget hearing with the rigor of a researcher. You know the names of your participants' children. You remember the day someone achieved thirty days of abstinence for the first time. That combination, head and heart, evidence and humanity, is the gold standard of leadership in this field.
But I also want to, to name something that doesn't get talked about enough, the institutional courage it requires to do this work. Every person in this room has had to defend this model to someone who didn't believe. You are the advocates. You carry the evidence, and you speak for the people who cannot yet fully speak for themselves.
That is leadership And so as I end and you begin this conference, I want to invite you to carry these thoughts with you, not just as inspiration for the week ahead, but as guideposts for the conversations you have, the connections you make, and the work you will continue long after you leave Rise '26.
First, expand the table. We are nowhere near finished. We got work to do. There are still justice-involved populations who do not have any port of entry to evidence-based and promising programs. Expanding access is not mission-driven, it is mos- it is mission fulfillment.
Second, tell the story. Your data is powerful. Your graduation ceremonies are powerful. Invite your legislators to them. Bring community members in. Post your outcomes. Write the op-eds. The best antidote for misunderstanding is a direct encounter with the truth, and you have the compelling truth on your side.
And finally, I want to speak of something larger. There is a phrase that defines this organization, it names this conference, and it begins every court session that any judge has ever presided over, "All rise." Traditionally, those words were a command, a call to, to deference, a signal that someone in authority has entered the room.
But I want you to hear those words differently today because that is why... that is what we say to every person who walks through our doors. All rise. You can rise. You are worth the effort of rising. We will hold this space for you while you find your footing. We will celebrate you when you get there, and we will not give up on you when it is hard.
That is the declaration of this movement
It is not that we get to rise in status, in professional recognition, or in pro- in- institutional prestige, but that the people we serve get to rise, families who are still whole because of what happens in our courtrooms. Dina rose, I rose because you decided this work was worth doing. That is why each and every one of you is in this room, and that is the promise of All Rise.
As long as we keep that promise to the people that we serve, to the communities we represent, to the science we are accountable to, and to each other, this movement will not just survive, it will rise.
Thank you. Now go have a great week.
Host: "Thank you, Ken Osborne"
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