CRIP and the History of the Jail Program

The Dallas Intergroup has long been involved with jail teams at Lew Sterrett Justice Center.  We began supporting jail teams in 1987.  Below is the link to a history of the jail program written by one of the founders, Don M.

AA Goes To Jail

The History of CRIP:

(While the CRIP program was well attended for 10 years by A.A. members and seemed to be popular, the program was ended by the court system.)

The Court Referral Information Program, better known as CRIP, was started in 1991 as a result of increasing numbers of individuals being “sentenced” to Alcoholics Anonymous whether there was a problem with alcohol or not.  This policy of AA Groups and members being asked to monitor attendance of court sentenced persons by signing papers that listed names, topics, dates and other information created a great deal of concern about our Traditions on Affiliation, Closed AA Meetings and Anonymity.  It was felt that the attendance papers were the policy of the judicial system and not an Alcoholics Anonymous group. 

As a result of these concerns, an alternative to the flood of court appointed individuals was developed and it was called CRIP.  It must be remembered that at this time AA saw a growing presence of people with no issues with alcohol.  People were sent for anger management, drug addiction, and many other problems that were not directly associated with alcohol or the desire to stop drinking.  The CRIP program included information from Narcotics Anonymous and Al-Anon on a rotating basis. 

Below is a link to the information sheet for this program.  (Many thanks to Jo M. for keeping our CRIP archives and donating them to the Dallas Intergroup Association.)  CRIP was offered by the Dallas Intergroup Association as an alternative to A.A. meetings for probationers and the court assigned.  The program met in the Central Jury Room, at the George Allen Courthouse, 600 Commerce Street, Dallas, TX on Monday, Wednesday and Friday at 7pm for a total of six sessions.  We based the program on one started earlier at the Chicago Area Intergroup Office.  At this time many of those “sentenced” to A.A. were aggressively uninterested in not drinking, and created problems for our groups.  With cooperation from the Probation Department of Dallas County, CRIP was strictly an informational program.  A probation officer was on hand to sign papers and answer questions related to the judicial/court system.  This was a free program that depended on volunteers from local groups.  Videos from AAWS such as “Young People in A.A.”, “It Sure Beats Sitting in a Cell” and “Hope” were shown and a member of our fellowship gave a 5 to 10 minute lead telling their personal experience.  A.A. was rotated with Al-Anon and Narcotics Anonymous over time. Below is the CRIP pamphlet used for the meetings.

CRIP Pamphlet p1b

Crip Pamphlet p2b

History of CRIP and DIA 1

History of CRIP and DIA 2

This program began as an DIA Intergroup Rep question.  Below is the beginnings of CRIP when the question was posed to the Intergroup Reps at the time by the Board of Directors.

IG Rep Proposal CRIP 1

IG Rep Proposal CRIP 2

Box 459 Primary Purpose 1991  (Vol. 37, No. 2   April/May 1991)

Some of the groups actively involved with the CRIP program were:  Preston, Downtown Nooners, Lifesavers, Dallas Central, Freedom, and Addison.  (Based on existing Volunteer Lists)

Certainly many court ordered alcoholics became valued members of our fellowship since the shaky beginnings of the AA appointed visits.  Below is a copy of our current DIA pamphlet concerning the courts and AA, entitled:  “Ordered to Attend AA?  You’re Not Alone and You’re Not the First!”

DIA Court Ordered Pamphlet

More information on the same issue comes from Service Material available through our General Service Office.

Court Professionals Info

More will be added to this page as the archives are scanned.

*According to a 1970 issue of Scoop, a publication about the groups and printed by the Metropolitan Dallas Intergroup Association, (Vol. 1, No. 3), the very first City Jail Meeting occurred Sunday, July 16th, 1970 through the Penal Services Committee of the Central Office, at the Dallas City Jail.  A total of 15 inmates attended and wanted to continue to talk after the meeting.  It was considered a wonderful success.

If anyone has a copy of this vital little publication, Scoop, please consider donating it to the Dallas Intergroup.  It is invaluable for the Dallas history snippets it contains.  Every little bit of history we can find adds to the total story of the groups in Dallas.  They are not particularly valuable beyond the small details each can contribute to the whole of our story.  We would love to have more issues in our archives.