Drug Courts Summary

I can’t speak for the entire State of Texas but Travis County drug court is making a positive impact on offenders’ lives. Two judges who manage Travis County’s drug court are directing addicts into a court supervised treatment program instead of incarceration. Drug courts like the one in Travis County have successfully handled nonaggressive defendants with drug and alcohol addictions. People who complete drug court programs rarely fall back into substance abuse. Per four drug-court judges surveyed, about 10 percent of program graduates commit new crimes. That’s a recidivism rate of one-fifth that of traditional probation programs. Which shows drug courts can ease the strain on congested penitentiaries and save taxpayer money. A study done by

The sixth key component requires that sanctions and rewards be coordinated into the programs to govern responses to participant’s compliance and non-compliance (NADCP, 1997). Some rewards could be praise from the judge, reduced supervision, reduced fines and etc. while some sanctions could be fines, community service, or even jail confinement. The seventh key component focuses on the importance of judicial interaction throughout the program, which can sometimes occur on a weekly basis. Key component number eight explains how imperative monitoring and evaluation is to measure the achievement of program goals and measure effectiveness. It is imperative for drug courts to display some sort of positive outcome by “gathering and managing information due to them monitoring daily activities, evaluating the quality of services provided, and producing longitudinal evaluations” (Mackin et al., 2012). The ninth and tenth components promote the importance of interdisciplinary education and forging partnerships with other agencies and community-based organizations. Education and training are important to maintain a specific level of professionalism and expanding collaborations would be helpful to provide a continuum of services for drug court participants.

Putting in charge of developing a drug court it is dream come true because I have always eager to help people overcome any obstacles they deal with in the life. Being a drug addict is something very serious and that cause you to lose your dignity, money and loves ones because once you addicted to the drugs you will go the extreme miles to get that drug and it will become a necessity instead of a need for you. Since I have been putting in charge of developing a new drug court that can help someone, I must first discuss how I will develop that court and criteria but first before discussing the who is eligible, who is not eligible, and the elements of how the drug court will consist of but first I have to explain what is a drug court and provide

Other models include more intensive measures involving campus drug courts and the involvement of administrators, local police, and the judicial system. Dutmers delves into the legality of this issue and provides a new viewpoint by explaining that prevention programs should implement campus drug courts, instead of focusing prevention solely on educational methods. As this idea is new and innovative, most research is based off the success within state mandated drug courts. Nonetheless, campuses will too reap the benefits that result from these establishments, which includes a decrease in repeat offenders. Dutmers notes that, “only 27.5% of offenders recidivated” (203). This direct correlation can be taken a step further because if people are not

In most cases, one of the main objectives of courts and the sentences they impose is that of rehabilitation. This is evidenced through a growing move in favour of a more holistic approach to justice, trying to address the issues which may have led to the crime, rather than just punishing the end result. One of the prime examples of this therapeutic approach to justice is the introduction of the Drug Court. Governed by the Drug Court Act 1998, the Drug court has both Local court and District court jurisdiction, and seeks to target the causes of drug-related criminal behaviour. It achieves this by ensuring that those who go through it receive treatment for their addictions, thereby reducing their propensity to reoffend, as many crimes are motivated by the need to satisfy addictions.

Drug court was first started in 1989 in Miami, Florida. Drug court came about due to the link between crime and drug abuse. This drug related crimes caused the jails to become over populated. Drug court became the solution to aid in the recovery of SUD as well as weed out petite drug related crimes and hard criminals. This is in intensive program with court supervision, case management for prosecution and/or incarceration. As well as a team of professional that assist the client in with the court, probation, treatment and police. These professional meet up with the client to discuss the program and how they are doing in it. This is a abstinence base program that help with rapid treatment entry, integrated treatment and court service, drug testing, and a sanctions and reward system (Miller,2015)

7. Both Tiger and Kaye question the notion of drug courts as a positive, liberal alternative to imprisonment. Tiger focuses on how drug courts attempt to merge the criminalization and medicalization of addiction, which she argues are contradictory approaches to treatment (Tiger 2011, 170). She expands on this contradiction by discussing how drug courts use medical terminology in their treatment, yet include very few actual medical professionals in treatment (Ibid, 179). She notes that the main figure in drug court treatment appears to be the judge, a clear figure of criminalization that takes control of treatment (Ibid, 177). The inclusion of the judge in the treatment of what is called a disease is inherently contradictory and only serves

Drug courts, which combine judicial supervision with substance abuse treatment, are rapidly gaining popularity as a tool to combat crime and drug use. Based on a five-year study, we found that people who took part in drug courts had lower relapse rates and committed fewer additional crimes, such as selling drugs and driving while intoxicated. Forty-nine percent of drug court participants reported committing new crimes, compared with 64 percent of

This report was done at Columbia University’s National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse (CASA) and talks about the drug court model. This report explains that some drug courts evolved from other existing programs that focused on reducing drug use for offenders. Although the drug court is different than other programs that are meant to reduce drug use. In the drug court model, criminal justice components and substance abuse treatments work together to promote abstinence and prosocial behavior. Drug courts also result in closer and more intensive supervision and drug tests, court appearances, and treatment contacts are much more frequent than any other forms of probation. The key goals of most drug courts are to reduce drug use by engaging

Currently, drug courts have been proven to be successful at reducing recidivism of offenders. In the United States there are about 120,000 people receiving help in order to rehabilitate them and to try to reduce the chances of recidivism (Office of National Drug Control Policy, 2011). These programs require individuals to participate in the programs for a minimum of one year. During this year the individuals are required to appear in court and be drug tested at

The system needs to reevaluate the way they deal with juvenile drug offenders in regards to drug treatment, because there is an abundance of underling factors suggested by researchers to have been disregarded, while they play a vital role in recidivism. Drug court treatment is necessary in reducing the risk of youth and for improvement of their overall lifestyle. It is more effective than traditional prisons and focuses more on the individual’s health and needs. This is imperative because the length of time that youth spend detained will impact them for the rest of their life, since they are missing out on growth opportunities and a positive

The United States of America has a higher incarceration rate than any other country in the world (Tonry, 1999). The goal of this high rate of incarceration is to deter criminals from committing more crime upon release from prison. Longer sentences are thought to deter individuals from committing more crime. Yet, recent research has questioned whether this high rate of incarceration is actually increasing recidivism rather than decreasing it. This study sets out to determine whether there is a positive relationship between incarceration of criminals who engage in drug-related crimes and recidivism in the community. This analysis examines fifty-six male offenders aged 18-22 years-old. These individuals were convicted in Maricopa County, the largest metropolitan county in the state

In order to assess whether drug courts are effective, drug court evaluations must explore the political and organizational contexts within drug court treatment (Stinchcomb, 2010). Many drug court evaluations focus exclusively on outcome measures such as recidivism and fail to account for the disparities between the courts’ organizational rhetoric and practices. Drug court evaluations fail to account for such issues as planned and delivered treatment, official and operational goals, and intended and unintended effects of mandated drug treatment. Rather than continuing to conduct program-specific outcome evaluations with methodological weaknesses, researchers should focus on developing widespread and consistent systematic standards for improving overall drug court effectiveness through evidence-based practices (Franco,

This article is used to explain drug use and drug abuse within the United States, and the policies in how to address it to the criminal justice system. It is stated that it begins as an appetite of drugs and then veers off into an obsession with drugs. Looking back, drug courts help provide a substitute to previous systems of incarceration that have worked, but have been seen as expensive and ineffective.

Within the first half of the twentieth century the Criminal Justice System’s main objective was to rehabilitate offenders by implementing programs to deter offenders from drug abuse and crimes in America. In the 1970’s and 1980’s there was a decline in rehabilitation programs, but later it gains its momentum by introducing more programs. The traditional courts offered alternative sentences for guilty pleas that are within the sentencing guidelines. Problems defendants had prior to committing criminal activities were never address while they were incarcerated. Therefore, in the United States of America, the first drug court was established in 1989, at the Miami-Dade County, Florida courthouse. This specialty court address defendants who suffered from substance abuse issues. This court demonstrates how defendants can be rehabilitated as well as having their sentence reduced and receive other benefits that drug court will offer them after completion of the program. Drug court is known to decrease the recidivism rate by 50% or more.