Corrections in the Community: Drug Courts

Corrections in the Community: Drug Courts

Drug courts are operated through treatment with sanctions and incentives, aftercare, and random and compulsory testing for drugs. The program has been an effective tool to improve public safety and public health. The facilities provide an innovative mechanism that permits collaboration between the judiciary, communities, community support groups, drug treatment providers, correction agencies, and prosecutors. The special facilities have been operational in the United States for over 20 years with well-documented effectiveness (Eaglin, 2016). The drug court program was initiated in the 1980s as an innovative approach to reduce the influx of addiction offenders experienced by the judicial system. The drug courts also provide the state and local governments with a cost-effective alternative whenever they experience serious budget cuts. Drug courts have enabled these governments to increase the number of drug offenders who get access to sustained recovery. Therefore, they improve health and safety and reduce the costs related to additional incarceration and rearrests. The current study examines the roles played by drug courts as correctional facilities in the community and their implementations throughout the United States.

Despite the numerous benefits that the drug courts are associated with, the implementation of the concept experiences huge variations across different jurisdictions. As a result, this can have implications for the court participants in terms of the outcomes. Nonetheless, this model still remains one of the most innovative evidence-based practices the judicial system in the United States has ever formulated. A great shift has been witnessed in the past three decades in the judicial system in the U.S. to the reliance on empirical research to inform practice and policy. The shift emphasizes what works in efforts to reduce radicalism and crime while improving the outcomes for the offenders. The specialized criminal courts can generally have contributed a lot to America’s crime and justice departments.

As opposed to other institutions, drug courts have been specially designed to offer accommodation for individuals with substance abuse problems, and later, after transformation, they divert them to community-based supervision from custodial supervision. Andrews and Bonta (2014) mention that this model has seen the courts undergo dramatic growth. Although the model is often applied differently across various jurisdictions, the gist of implementing drug courts is the need for collaboration between staff from treatment and social services and the judicial system. The staff is unified by the single objective of enhancing individuals’ criminal and clinical outcomes under the drug court jurisdiction. Noteworthy, the model employs the “carrots-and-sticks” approach, emphasizing the value of rehabilitation and differentiating it from traditional courts. However, drug courts still implement some sanctions due to deterrence, including refusal of drug tests. Most Americans think of drug courts as the custodians of therapeutic jurisprudence.

Since its inception in 1989 in Dade County in Florida, drug courts and their promises to completely change the judicial system have drawn great attention from the general public. The model has changed and evolved in the past 30 years such that almost every state applies the principles associated with drug courts. Based on the latest reports, approximately 3,100 drug courts are operational across the United States (Office of Justice Programs, 2018). An interplay of three main events in the 20th century can have accelerated the spread of the adoption of drug courts in the U.S. The events include the War on Drugs through punitive measures, the emergence of treatment-and-community-based correctional philosophies, and the reduced capacity of the correctional facilities to cater to incarcerated substance abuse offenders. The traditional correctional facilities for incarcerated drug abusers failed to deliver, demanding a paradigm shift.

Drug courts vary in their target populations, service resources, and model designs. Nevertheless, as the National Institute of Justice (2020) observes, these special courts were set up to cater to offenders’ and defendants’ needs, juvenile offenders, and adults having pending child welfare cases. However, all these groups have one thing in common, they all have a problem with alcohol and drugs dependency. A comprehensive model has been adopted for drug courts involving assessment and screening of the needs, response rates, and risks of the offenders, monitoring and supervision, and judicial interactions. The model is also based on graduated incentives and sanctions and rehabilitation and treatment services.

Another important characteristic of the drug courts is that they are managed through a multidisciplinary and non-adversarial team composed of judges, defense attorneys, prosecutors, treatment services professionals, social workers, and community corrections. Besides, the program also highly encourages other stakeholders to participate, including families of the offenders and the community and law enforcers. Such participation is expected through hearings, graduation events, and the implementation of programs. According to Sevigny et al. (2013), the non-adversarial approach is crucial in protecting the rights of all participants. The program is crucial for the facilitation of treatment of an individual. In this sense, the defense counsel and the prosecutor are expected to abandon their traditional adversarial relationship as portrayed in courtrooms and work as one team. Once the offender has been admitted to the drug court, the team’s main focus is to develop them into law-abiding individuals and assist them in recovery instead of focusing on the merits of the pending case.

The prosecuting attorney in the drug court model is responsible for ensuring that the public is safe by ensuring that all the admitted candidates are appropriate for the program and that they meet all the requirements for admission. The defense counsel is charged with protecting the participants’ due process rights and encouraging full participation. Therefore, in the coordinated efforts of the drug courts, both the defense counsel and the prosecution attorney play an important role. The two play crucial roles in designing case processing, screening, and screening policies and procedures that guarantee public safety and protection of the rights of the participants. Another important aspect of the drug court model is that it emphasizes early detection of the participants who qualify for placement and proceed with the admission process. The emphasis is due to the acknowledgment that the arrest process can be quite traumatic to individuals.

The duration immediately after arrest or apprehension into rehabilitation provides a good opportunity for the drug court players to initiate the treatment process. However, initiating the judicial process immediately after this period, as with the traditional court system, depended much on the crisis of nature. Public confidence is also enhanced by the prompt actions taken by drug courts. More importantly, the idea to incorporate clinical approaches into the judicial process is crucial to the overall treatment requirements. Including law enforcement officers in the treatment efforts has proven effective in increasing graduation rates. Research suggests that law enforcers’ engagement has increased graduation rates through drug courts from 46% to 57% (Logan & Link, 2019). The model also provides its participants with training and technical assistance resources. A National Law Enforcement Task Force has been established by the National Drug Court Institute (NDCI) and the National Association of Drug Court Professionals (NADCP). The role of the task force is to ensure increased participation of law enforcers in the process of drug courts and also collect the essential input from major law enforcement leaders across the United States. The task force comprises representatives from various enforcement departments, including the International Association of Chiefs of Police (IACP) and the National Sheriffs Association (NSA).

In conclusion, the study sought to examine the roles of drug courts as correctional facilities in the community in the United States. From the available resources, it is evident that these innovative establishments that came into force in 1989 play a very important role. The model was established upon realizing that the traditional correction process could not effectively cater to drug abuse offenders. Instead of the traditional correction process, drug courts emphasize treatment and rehabilitation instead of punitive measures. As a result, the number of drug courts operating in the United States has increased tremendously over the last three decades. As a result, these courts have become increasingly popular among the American population as increased participation is evident. The courts function through a collaborative approach, bringing together clinical and judicial representatives. Therefore, this teamwork has seen drug courts achieve massive success in the recent past. In other words, drug courts play an important role and thus should be encouraged and supported.

References

Andrews, D. A., & Bonta, J. (2014). The psychology of criminal conduct (5th ed. ed.). New Providence, NJ: Anderson. 

Chandler, R. K., Fletcher, B. W., & Volkow, N. D. (2009). Treating drug abuse and addiction in the criminal justice system: improving public health and safety. Jama, 301(2), 183-190.

Eaglin, J. M. (2016). The drug court paradigm. American Criminal Law Reveview, 53, 595. Logan, M. W., & Link, N. W. (2019). Taking stock of drug courts: Do they work? Victims & Offenders, 14(3), 283-298.

National Institute of Justice. Overview of Drug Courts. National Institute of Justice. Office of Justice Programs. (2018). Drug courts (NCJ 238527). Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Justice.

Sevigny, E. L., Pollack, H. A., & Reuter, P. (2013). Can drug courts help to reduce prison and jail populations?. The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 647(1), 190-212.