Shanendoa Hunt spent much of his life in and out of treatment for cocaine addiction—and in and out of jail for thefts he committed to fund his habit.
Hunt, who lives in Robeson County, said he first tried cocaine in his late teens while working at a restaurant. He wanted to be accepted by his coworkers.
“When I got introduced to the lifestyle,” Hunt said, “I didn’t see being homeless. I didn’t see crime. I didn’t see the desperate measures people are willing to go to get high. I didn’t see any of that.”
The more consistently he used cocaine, the more he couldn’t shake his need for it. When he couldn’t afford to buy the drugs on his salary alone, he began stealing.
Hunt was released from prison in 2020 after serving nearly two years for habitual breaking and entering and other felonies. His lengthy list of larceny and burglary convictions dates back to 2001.
Now 49, Hunt hasn’t used drugs in over 10 months. He graduated from a truck driving academy last month. He wants to become a state-certified peer-support specialist—someone with lived experience who guides others through their substance misuse recovery—once he meets the one-year sobriety requirement in January.
Hunt credits his success to Lt. Hollis McNeill and Det. Jeremy Gerald, who run the Substance Abuse Freedom & Education (SAFE) program at the Robeson County Sheriff’s Office.
Originally called Law Enforcement Assisted Diversion (LEAD) when Robeson County Sheriff’s Office launched the program in 2021, SAFE’s mission is simple. Instead of putting offenders struggling with substance use disorders behind bars, McNeill and Gerald steer them into detox and treatment facilities and work with the court system to dismiss warrants and criminal charges. They also help participants get basic needs like food and clothing, and connect them to housing, educational, and employment opportunities.
A new grant of nearly $90,000 from the North Carolina Harm Reduction Coalition will help expand SAFE’s work, allowing McNeill and Gerald to potentially reach residents before they are charged with a crime.
The grant is part of $11 million in funding distributed by the N.C. Department of Health and Human Services to community-based diversion programs earlier this year.
“I’ve learned, if you can deter them from using drugs, everything else takes care of itself,” McNeill said. “Their families amend. Their kids will come back to them. Whatever they’ve done, it’ll mend. I’ve seen it so many times.”
Programs That Work
In Robeson County—which had one of the highest overdose death rates and the highest crime rate in the state in 2024—SAFE has been extremely successful, McNeill said. Since the program started, McNeill said he and Gerald have helped more than 580 people, including a handful after a drug bust in August.
LEAD program participation is associated with lower rates of arrests and citations after at least six months, according to Duke University School of Medicine, which analyzed programs in Fayetteville, Wilmington, Waynesville, and Catawba.
“We can’t arrest our way out of addiction and drug use.”
Greg Berry, statewide LEAD and deflection programs director for the North Carolina Harm Reduction Coalition
The programs also helped increase the number of people using behavioral health services like medication-assisted treatment for addiction and outpatient treatment, the evaluation found. A majority of participants continued treatment a year after first being involved with a LEAD program, and were less likely to use crisis-related services.
“We can’t arrest our way out of addiction and drug use,” said Greg Berry, statewide LEAD and deflection programs director for the North Carolina Harm Reduction Coalition. “This gets us a reduction in recidivism. This gets us a reduction in overdoses.”
Robeson County saw a 55 percent decrease in fatal drug overdoses between 2023 and 2024, according to the N.C. Department of Health and Human Services—bigger than the statewide drop of 32 percent.
Public health workers largely credit the decline to harm reduction measures that aim to help people struggling with addiction use drugs more safely until they are ready to quit. The widespread distribution of naloxone, a medication that can reverse the effects of an opioid overdose, is a form of harm reduction. Diversion programs can also make a difference.
Hunt said he’d always been told the only way he’d get sober was in prison. But each time he was released, he used cocaine again. He was eventually enrolled in the Robeson County Adult Drug Treatment Court, where he was recommended for SAFE. After successfully completing a treatment program in Charlotte, SAFE helped him find a place to live.
“The real problem isn’t that I was committing crimes,” Hunt said. “The problem was that I’m on drugs, and until you get me off drugs, I’m going to continue the same cycle over and over and over.”
For McNeill, the work is personal. He said his sister refused treatment for her addiction and died of a fentanyl overdose two years ago.
“My phone never stops,” McNeill said. “When they ask for help, if you don’t get it right then, then tomorrow isn’t promised.”]
Success in Fayetteville
Robeson County is one of six counties receiving money from the North Carolina Harm Reduction Coalition to start or expand pre-arrest diversion programs. The others are Gaston, Guilford, Stanly, New Hanover, and Cumberland counties.
Cumberland County was the first county in the southeastern United States to have a pre-arrest diversion program. Launched in 2016 but not fully operational until 2022, the Fayetteville Police Department’s LEAD program has served 132 participants, according to crime analyst Jennifer Dew. She said the program has contributed to a decrease in overall crime in the city, including a 10 percent drop in 2025.
The success caught state Attorney General Jeff Jackson’s attention. He visited the Fayetteville Police Department last month to meet representatives from the police department, the North Carolina Harm Reduction Coalition, and community partners.
“Everybody knows about Fayetteville,” said Fayetteville Police Lt. Jamal Littlejohn, who has been involved with LEAD since 2017. “We were the first. We are like the model. But to have [Jackson] come and acknowledge the work that we’ve done is great.”
Gov. Josh Stein, who preceded Jackson as attorney general, recently called for increased diversion programs after the General Assembly passed House Bill 307, also called Iryna’s Law. The law is named after Iryna Zarutska, the Ukrainian refugee who was stabbed to death on a light rail in Charlotte in August. The law sets higher standards for determining bail for people accused of violent offenses, and eliminates bail in some cases. It also reinstates the death penalty.
Berry said it’s good to have Stein and Jackson on board, because diversion policies aren’t always politically popular.
“As a society, we’re a lot more oriented to the carrot and the stick,” Berry said. “We’re a lot more oriented to punishment and reward, and we understand that a lot more clearly. But the ideal behind harm reduction is supporting people’s choice to improve any part of their life and supporting any forward movement, without trying to put conditions on it or dictate what it has to look like.”
As a patrol officer with the Fayetteville Police Department, Littlejohn saw the same people arrested over and over for drug possession and minor crimes related to drug use. He said he began asking himself whether there was anything else he could do besides putting them in handcuffs.
LEAD showed him another option. Now he and others are helping other police departments realize the benefits of the program. Dew helped build the Greensboro Police Department’s program. Littlejohn will help McNeill and Gerald build up SAFE in Robeson County.
“How do I measure success?” Littlejohn said. “Just one person. If we can have that one person recover and tell others what is happening here.”