NCJ Number
195866
Journal
International Journal of Drug Policy Volume: 12 Issue: 5/6 Dated: December 1, 2001 Pages: 469-475
Date Published
December 2001
Length
7 pages
Annotation
This paper concludes that there is no evidence that drug court programs produce outcomes that are superior or even equal to outcomes achieved by voluntary treatment programs, and it recommends that Canadian drug policy promote the expansion of proven effective voluntary treatment for illicit drug abusers before endorsing unproven mandatory treatment programs, such as drug courts, that rely on legal coercion.
Abstract
A drug court is a mandated judicial supervision and addiction treatment alternative to incarceration that has flourished in the United States over the past decade. Most drug courts offer an intensely supervised addiction treatment program as an alternative to standard judicial sentencing. Offenders who successfully complete the program may have charges dropped or sentences revoked; and unsuccessful participants, including dropouts, are returned to the regular court system and face possible imprisonment. A 1997 report by the U.S. General Accounting Office that involved an intensive and extensive analysis of U.S. drug courts and critiques of individual evaluations available at the time concluded that there is insufficient evidence to determine whether drug courts are effective. More recently, a researcher from Columbia University released three papers that have reviewed research on drug courts. Although the author concludes that the outcomes of drug court program evaluations are promising, a more skeptical analysis reveals that evidence of effectiveness is lacking, mainly because of flawed methodology that makes it difficult to draw definitive conclusions. Few studies have tracked long-term outcomes, particularly rates of recidivism and substance misuse once participants have completed the drug court treatment programs. Further, there are no studies that make direct comparisons between drug courts and voluntary treatment programs. As Canada continues to develop and implement strategies aimed at reducing the negative consequences of illicit drug use, at least two fundamental principles should be followed. The first is that priority be given to the funding and implementation of interventions that have been proven effective; the second is that adequate access to harm reduction and other treatment interventions for those who seek help voluntarily must be available before considering the implementation of any mandated treatment alternatives. 23 references