Drug courts

SIGNIFICANCE: Drug courts are a new component of the criminal justice system that tries to remove, at least temporarily, cases of drug offenders from traditional criminal processing and to place them in less formal hearings in which judges, prosecutors, public defenders, case workers, and the defendants themselves work together as teams to correct the offenders’ drug and alcohol problems.

Drug and alcohol abuse tend to make people more likely to commit crimes for many reasons. Placing drug addicts and alcoholics on probation or incarcerating them in prisons typically does nothing to address the fundamental problems of their substance abuse. Drug courts combine accountability to the criminal justice system and protection of the public with treatment for alcoholism, treatment for addiction, and treatment for related mental health problems. The first US drug court was established in Miami, Florida, in 1989. By 2024, more than four thousand drug court programs were in operation throughout the United States.

Drug Court Processes and Characteristics

The drug court process begins when defendants are arrested for drug possession or offenses related to drug or alcohol use, such as committing thefts to buy drugs. After suspects are arrested, prosecutors screen their cases to determine if they are eligible for adjudication in drug courts. In some cases, defendants are not screened until after they are convicted of crimes or they violate the terms of their probation. Drug court participants are usually long-term users of more than one drug.

After defendants are classified as being eligible for drug courts, the requirements of the drug court program are explained to them. Depending on how far the judicial processing of their cases has developed, defendants can benefit by having the prosecution, adjudication, or sentencing of their cases postponed until after their successful completion of the drug court program. Defendants who “graduate” from drug court are typically rewarded by having the charges against them dropped, their cases dismissed, or their probation ended.

Drug courts differ from traditional criminal justice in many ways. For example, they incorporate drug testing into case processing. Participants in the programs may be subjected to random urine testing as often as three times a week. Those who test positive or miss tests may be subject to such penalties as weekend jail stays, increased testing, or restrictions on their freedom to leave their homes. Participants who do well may receive such rewards as gifts, tokens, or advancement to the next phase in their treatment. Most often, however, successful participants are rewarded merely by praise from the judges at their court hearings and applause from fellow participants in the programs.

Relationships between participants and the courts are nonadversarial. The courts see their mission as assisting participants to recover from alcohol or drug addiction. They try to identify defendants in need of treatment and refer them to treatment as soon as possible after their arrests, rather than having them wait several months for trials and sentencing.

Participants in drug court programs are provided with extensive mental and physical health services, job skills training, education, and housing services to help them stay clean, sober, and out of trouble. Participants are usually required to attend meetings of Alcoholics Anonymous or Narcotics Anonymous.

The Team Approach

Judges, prosecutors, public defenders, probation officers, and treatment case managers (usually social workers or counselors) work as teams to monitor and assist participants. They try to reach consensus on how to reward participants who comply with their programs and penalize those who do not.

Drug court judges see individual participants as often as every week at court sessions attended by all participants. Every participant is called to the bench by the judges; together, they review their fellow participants’ progress. Judges commend those who are doing well and may warn or penalize those who are not doing well. These proceedings all take place in open courts, before other participants and all members of the drug court teams.

Drug court teams seek to continually evaluate their programs’ progress against their goals. They also work to incorporate innovations in substance abuse treatment, the technology of monitoring participants, and lessons learned from the experiences of other drug courts. Drug courts work in partnership with local government, community agencies, businesses, churches, and health professionals.

Effectiveness of Drug Courts

Several studies have suggested that drug courts are effective in reducing drug use, retaining participants, reducing repeat offending, and costing taxpayers less money than such alternative programs as incarceration. However, these findings must be treated with caution. Many of these studies are not scientifically rigorous, and even the studies that use sound methods shed little light on how drug courts achieve their positive results. Until more research is done, it will not be clear which components of the drug court model, such as drug testing and weekly court appearances, are essential to the court’s success.

Yet there is a growing body of evidence that these programs have positive effects. A ten-year study of the Multnomah County drug court in Portland, Oregon, published in 2007, evaluated the impact of five different factors—age, gender, race, number of prior arrests, and participation in the drug court program—on the incidence of recidivism in the five years following an arrest that led to drug court. While the most statistically significant predictor of recidivism was the number of prior arrests, participation in the program was also statistically significant, as were age and race. Integrating this information into the data analysis showed that participation in the drug court program reduced the incidence of rearrest in the subsequent five years by approximately 29 percent, and recidivism of participants was significantly reduced for up to fourteen years after entry into the program. In addition, the drug court program cost significantly less per person compared to traditional prosecution for drug offenses; the study calculated that the program saved around $13,609 per person, or approximately $88.5 million over ten years.

Issues and Concerns

At the start of the twenty-first century, jurisdictions were launching new drug courts at an amazing rate. However, it was expected that some of these new programs either would not or could not implement the drug court model fully, as the model requires local jurisdictions to abandon their “business as usual” practices and become open to innovation. As jurisdictions move to adapt the drug court model to use with the juvenile justice system and the parents of children who have been abused and neglected, these issues will intensify.

Despite their apparent success, drug courts still reach only a small percentage of offenders who might benefit from their programs. Many early drug courts began their operations with the help of generous federal and state grants. However, some local jurisdictions may lack either the will or the means to continue operating their drug courts after their grant money is exhausted.

Although drug courts face numerous challenges, they show great promise as alternatives to “revolving door” justice in which the same offenders are repeatedly processed. In some criminal justice circles, the growth of drug courts is referred to as a “movement,” and one that reflects the enthusiasm about this new way of dealing with crime and addiction.

Bibliography

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Gaines, Larry K., and Janine Kremling, eds. Drugs, Crime, & Justice: Contemporary Perspectives. 3rd ed. Long Grove: Waveland, 2014. Print.

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United States. Dept. of Justice. Office of Justice Programs. Bureau of Justice Assistance. Defining Drug Courts: The Key Components. 1997. Washington: Author, 2004. National Drug Court Institute. Web. 26 May 2016.