Drug Courts
The Department of Justice of the United States of America, in order to cope with heavy work pressure, had to introduce a separate court for the sole purpose of dealing with criminal offenses committed by drug abusers and drug dependants. This concept has proved to be so successful that other countries of the world, including Australia, are now contemplating the introduction of a separate court for dealing with the same issues of drug abuse. How did the need for such Drug Courts develop? To understand this, one must understand the different categories of drug abusers. These people can be generally categorized under two groups: the first group of people lead stable lives, out of reach of the drug criminal justice system. They are peaceful people who do not cause any disruption of societal peace and calm. The second group of people, however, is extremely disruptive and is always involved with the lower sections of society. Their lives are totally disorganized and they are permanently engaged in criminal activities.
The need for correction and punishment of such people has led to the inception of Drug Courts. These courts primarily deal with the increase of drug related crimes in the country wherein a drug user commits a crime for any purpose of his own, under the influence of drugs. The number of such drug users has also been increasing at an alarming rate and the resulting increase in incarceration has been an issue of major concern. If such criminals were to be punished, there is actually no space in the jails to house them due to the severely overcrowded conditions of such prisons. The high recidivism rates among the people who use drugs is another issue that needs to be tackled appropriately. Added to these issues is the increasing workload of the Department of Justice of the U.S.A. And the mounting negative pressure of the general public who want 'something' to be done to tackle the problem of drug abuse. 1
During the 1980's the U.S. Department of Justice dealt with the issue of drug abuse and the resultant crimes with strict sentencing and mandatory punishments. However, by the 1990's, there was severe pressure on the Court of Justice to deal with these crimes in a strict manner and mete out appropriate punishment to those who committed such crimes. To cope with this pressure and also deal with these offenders in such a way that they would not commit such crimes again within a reasonable time period, the judges began to think of new and innovative methods to deal with them. This resulted in the creation of separate courts wherein the punishment for most of these crimes was to be 'treatment' for their addictive use of drugs. One of the first Drug Courts in the U.S.A. was thus established in the 1970's with the intention of handling drug cases in a separate segregated court whereby these cases could be dealt with separately and quickly. 2
1. Tony, Makkai. Drug Courts: Issues and Prospects. Trends and Issues in Criminal Justice Retrieved at http://www.aic.gov.au/publications/tandi/ti95.pdf. Accessed on 03/24/2004
2. Tony, Makkai. Drug Courts: Issues and Prospects. Trends and Issues in Criminal Justice Retrieved at http://www.aic.gov.au/publications/tandi/ti95.pdf. Accessed on 03/24/2004
At that time, the stress was on meting out more and more severe punishments to such offenders. Since then, however, the emphasis in on meting out correctional treatments to the offenders whereby the person would have to undergo a series of treatments to cure himself of his damaging drug habit. He would be offered community support also to deal with his drug abuse. One of the first of these courts that dealt with forcible treatment for drug abusers was that of Dade County in Miami, in 1989. This court proved to set an example for other Drug Courts by its treatment of the case. The traditional 'probation officer' was not allowed to deal with the accused; instead, it was the sentencing judge himself who would deal with him. The criminal was then offered a choice of remaining within the program of treatment of his own volition, without having to adhere to its rules of participation. 3
This method of dealing with the accused brought about a change in the entire system of Drug Courts of the U.S.A. However, it must be remembered that laws in the U.S.A. may differ not only from state to state but also from county to county and therefore, each Court in each county has to deal with the problem...
Adolescents and Children The drug courts have become part of the solution, not the problem in the lives of thousands of children and adolescents across the country (Schwebel, 176). Juvenile drug courts are increasing in the United States, as a result of increasing availability of external funding, raising the question of what constitutes a "serious" juvenile drug user. Nearly half of all adolescents in the United States will try some form of
The later stages focuses on dealing with the problems related to the drug use withdrawal like the withdrawal syndromes, the tendency to relapse. The later stages also focus on restoring the self dignity and also impacting the participant with the prerequisites to self-manage the drug abuse issue once the probation and treatment duration ends (Tara, 2007). The drug courts are also said to be significant to the economy of the U.S.
Drug Courts: The Best Can Get Better Drug Courts Drug courts: the best can get better i Drug Courts: The Best Solution Can Get Better It has taken nearly two decades for consensus to solidify but now most authors agree that drug courts reduce recidivism and long-term social cost. Huddleston, Marlowe and Casebolt argue that "no other justice intervention can rival the results produced by drug courts" (2008, p. 2). Drug courts are the most
Drug Courts: A Program to Reinvent Justice for Addicts For the past several decades, drug use has had an overwhelming effect upon the American justice system, with drug and drug-related crime being the most common offense in almost every community (Drug Strategies, 1996). Beyond the troubling ability of these problems to fill prisons to capacity, the traditional judicial system seemed to have no deterrent effect on these crimes (Drug and Crime
Green County Drug Court The Green County court system has finally decided to implement a "drug court" to bring about some much-needed changes in the current system. The county has authorized a new judge and is debating the merits whether that individual should be elected or appointed. The court is also considering the questions of whether it should operate on a due process model or a crime control model and whether
Juvenile drug courts are among the most recent innovations in the treatment of substance-involved adolescents in the justice system. Their emergence in the 1990s was driven by the rising rates of substance abuse among adolescents -- a 2000 report by the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, for instance, showed that substance usage among high school students had risen substantially in the 1990s, with almost 9.5% being cocaine users; a
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