Sporting a baseball hat and heavy silver jewelry, Joe Aitson carries a coffee mug decorated with a skull and crossbones. A tattoo that spells "madness" in swirling letters runs the full length of his forearm.
But his intimidating first impression dissolves as he greets his coworkers with a hug or a warm smile. And when he walks into his shared office in downtown Oklahoma City, it quickly becomes clear he's more focused on the work he's there to do, not what people think.
Aitson is a recovery navigator for Diversion Hub, a nonprofit that serves Oklahomans impacted by the criminal legal system. There, he spends his days with people who've been accepted into Oklahoma County's drug treatment court — a program he first got to know as a participant in 2022.
He said, in a way, his whole life has been preparing him for the job.
Aitson had recently moved to Montana when he first got in trouble with the law as a teenager, around the same time he started using drugs. He said he was stubborn and took pride in his growing rap sheet.
"It was the only thing that I had in my mind at that time, living that way," Aitson said. "It was the only thing I had in my life that was of any type of attribute."
When Aitson describes how he was "kicked out of an entire state," and forced to return to Oklahoma, it's possible to still detect a twinge of achievement in his voice, tempered by hard-fought efforts to change what he called his "criminal mentality."
It took getting sober to learn there was more to life, and that he had more to offer, Aitson said. Now, he uses his past and experience in recovery to try to help others navigate the system.
"It's easy to recognize things in other people that we ourselves deal with," he said.
A plan that works
Aitson graduated from drug court in Oklahoma County in March 2024. It's a specialized court docket program designed to help people break the cycle of addiction and incarceration by offering an alternative to traditional sentencing. Instead of going to prison, eligible defendants agree to enter a structured treatment program overseen by a judge.
Participants typically have nonviolent offenses connected to substance use. They must plead guilty to their charges before entering the program, but if they graduate, the charges can be dismissed.
Along with regularly scheduled hearings, participants agree to frequent random drug testing and work closely with counselors and probation officers.
Judge Kenneth Stoner oversees both the county's drug and DUI court dockets, which currently have about 480 participants combined. People show up to Stoner's courtroom in different conditions or phases of the process, but most succeed.
"Four out of five people that get in this program will graduate," he said. "We'll get their charges dropped, cases dismissed, and aside from having to pay restitution back, their criminal justice system involvement should be over with by the end of this program."
When people approach his bench, they announce the number of days they've been sober, drawing applause from the room whether it has been one day or hundreds.
In a typical courtroom, prosecutors and defense attorneys keep their distance, seated on opposite sides, guarding their strategies in quiet tones.
But in Stoner's courtroom, the tables are joined to form a single workspace where prosecutors, public defenders and treatment providers collaborate openly on each case. The judge knows each person by name, using details about their lives to inform the best decision about how to keep them on track.
If someone fails a drug test, they can be assigned a day of community service. Stoner asks what pushed them to use, and what strategies they could rely on next time instead. If they make impressive strides to recovery, he rewards them with gift cards or a longer length of time before their next appearance.
Oklahoma County's treatment courts report saving the state more than $200 million since 2016. Per year, it costs more than twice as much to incarcerate someone as it does to put them through a treatment court, the program estimates. Stoner said it's impossible to calculate other impacts of the program, like how many families it has reunited.
Mixed into his camera roll on his phone are dozens of photos of participants whose weddings he agreed to officiate, including one where all the bridesmaids were wearing camouflage dresses.
"I always think that when you're in an addiction, whatever you're seeing is not the real version of the person," Stoner said. "And so once they get sober, you're starting to learn who [they really are]."
Stoner said treatment courts were modeled off the idea that humans are social learners. He said people like Aitson, who can show other participants that their hard work can pay off, are crucial to success.
"He's been there, he's done it. He's worked the program," Stoner said. "And now he's really active in the recovery community and can be a really steady guide for somebody."
Similarly, Aitson said he owes his progress to the navigators who came before him.
"I wouldn't be nearly as good as what I'm doing, or even capable of doing the job I'm doing now, without all the people I've had in front of me that helped guide me," he said.
Helping the next cohort of participants
Now, Aitson is often the first person people see when they get out of the Oklahoma County jail.
"My job is by any legal means necessary to help you stay out of jail, out of prison. Okay?" Aitson told the two newest participants sitting in the back seat of his car.
Everyone who pleads into drug court will be connected with Aitson or one of his coworkers.
Diversion Hub navigators like Aitson help people accepted into treatment courts get connected to resources right away. A free cell phone, bus passes and other forms of support all help a person succeed.
Troy Downey leaned forward slightly in the back of Aitson's car as he listened to his advice. He said he just spent five months in the county jail. While there, he went through fentanyl withdrawals that made his whole body hurt. Downey said he was nervous, but was ready to try something new.
"I'm not going to keep getting chances like this, you know, either do it and get it done or, like he said, go to prison," Downey said. "So, I got to get it done."
Downey said he wants to stay sober and out of jail for his son. He hopes they can go to the Oklahoma State Fair together, and that he can consistently show up for him in ways his dad couldn't.
Tiffany Hopper also said she was anxious. She grew quiet on the ride back to her house.
"How did I get lost in all the chaos and mayhem?" she asked herself.
She said she's still trying to clear her mind and prepare for all of the changes ahead.
Hopper and Downey both said part of the reason they agreed to participate in drug court was simply to get out of the Oklahoma County jail. Aitson said many participants come to the program that way, himself included. Since 2020, nearly 60 people have died inside the jail, according to the People's Council for Justice Reform. The jail also has repeatedly failed health inspections and is chronically understaffed. In 2022, voters approved a bond to replace the aging facility. But the project is running over budget by hundreds of millions of dollars.
"They should change a lot of things about it," Hopper said about the jail. "It's not the cleanest place. I know, sometimes, unless they're forced, they don't change anything about that place."
"Everything they do takes a long time," Downey added. "There's nothing they do that's fast."
Even though he's a graduate, Aitson said it's still easy for him to understand what current drug court participants are going through. Remnants of his past are all around him. In the urine analysis lab connected to his office, his old ID card for testing is taped up on the glass. It says his name, but Aitson said he doesn't recognize the man in the picture.
Aitson has been sober for more than three years but said his work helps him make amends for the life he used to lead.
"I've often told myself, maybe if I had somebody that could connect with me in the proper language on the same level, I may have listened sooner," he said.
Aitson said he hopes he can show people it's possible to make different choices.
"Nobody changes if they don't know how," he said.
This report was produced by the Oklahoma Public Media Exchange, a collaboration of public media organizations. Help support collaborative journalism by donating at the link at the top of this webpage.
