{"id":46778,"date":"2012-05-02T11:30:11","date_gmt":"2012-05-02T16:30:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/?p=46778"},"modified":"2012-05-11T14:23:53","modified_gmt":"2012-05-11T19:23:53","slug":"are-drug-courts-the-solution-to-the-drug-problem","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/2012\/05\/02\/are-drug-courts-the-solution-to-the-drug-problem\/","title":{"rendered":"Are Drug Courts the Solution to the Drug Problem?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>The first drug court started in Miami in 1989 as an effort to stop the cycle of drug addiction and crime.\u00a0 The program brought together judges, prosecuting and defense attorneys, addiction counselors, and social workers to collaboratively build an individualized treatment program.\u00a0 Rather than sending people to jail, the drug court program was designed to treat addiction while participants lived in the community.\u00a0 Drug courts have become an increasingly common way for communities to engage with low-level drug offenders.<\/p>\n

Seeking to raise awareness and support for drug courts, the National Association of Drug Court Professionals has released a series of PSAs entitled, \u201cAll Rise<\/a>.\u201d\u00a0 Using a mix of celebrities and drug court judges, these commercials assert that 75% of drug court participants are never arrested again.<\/p>\n

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The promise is clear.\u00a0 Drug courts not only treat addiction, they also treat a number of social problems (\u201cno more families torn apart\u2026 no more neglect\u2026 no more overdoses\u201d).<\/p>\n

Are drug courts really this successful?<\/p>\n

The truth is, we still don\u2019t know.\u00a0 The 75% success statistic comes from a study<\/a> published in 2003.\u00a0 The authors report that only 27.5% of drug court participants had been re-arrested and charged<\/em> with a serious<\/em> crime within two years<\/em>.\u00a0 So, we don\u2019t know what re-arrest rates look like after that two-year period and the data doesn\u2019t include arrests for minor crimes or arrests for serious crimes that did not result in a charge.\u00a0 This is a far cry from the claim made in the video: that 75% of drug court participants are never arrested again.<\/p>\n

The claims asserted in the \u201cAll Rise\u201d campaign, then, should be treated with caution.\u00a0 That said, drug courts are a significant move away from punitiveness for addicted offenders. Increasing the time to reoffending is a very positive step for the offender, for the community, and for the criminal justice system.\u00a0 Additionally, most recidivism occurs within three years of release, so if the drug court program is helping participants to make it past this milestone it may indeed lead to some graduates leaving criminality altogether.<\/p>\n

But before we turn to drug courts as \u201cthe\u201d solution, we need more research on the effectiveness of drug courts.\u00a0 Women and Caucasians fare better in the program than men and people of color.\u00a0 And large courts tend to be more effective than small courts. Nevertheless, since the 1990s drug courts have spread across the nation to all major cities and many medium and small-sized cities, some of which have limited resources and less dedication.\u00a0 All Rise\u2019s enthusiasm should be tempered with a critical eye aimed at making these programs work well, and for as many people as possible.<\/p>\n

————————<\/p>\n

Kimberly Baker<\/a> is an assistant professor of Sociology and Women\u2019s Studies at Ithaca College.\u00a0 She teaches classes in crime, deviance, and law.\u00a0 Her research is on drugs, addiction, and U.S. drug policy, including drug courts.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The first drug court started in Miami in 1989 as an effort to stop the cycle of drug addiction and crime.\u00a0 The program brought together judges, prosecuting and defense attorneys, addiction counselors, and social workers to collaboratively build an individualized treatment program.\u00a0 Rather than sending people to jail, the drug court program was designed to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":51,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[2056,237,23704],"class_list":["post-46778","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-crimelaw","tag-drugs","tag-public-service-announcements"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46778","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/51"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=46778"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46778\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":47266,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46778\/revisions\/47266"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=46778"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=46778"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=46778"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}