DRUG COURTS WILL LEAD TO MORE ARRESTS

"Crime And Punishment" Could Become "Crime And Treatment"? Panel Gets
Training To Set Up Drug Court In Jefferson County

What is the court going to do when there is no crime?

Every week charges of marijuana come from "routine" traffic stops. Head
light or tail light out have turned into searches!. Call to loud music has
ended with a search. Recently in St Lawrence County two individuals have
been searched for standing on the side walk. If those individuals are
"coerced" in to drug courts to "change lifestyles" without committing a
crime, what good will it do?

People who are forced into treatment may not actually need it. They may
just be people who use drugs in a non-problematic way who happened to get
arrested. Arrest may not be the best way to determine who should get
treatment services.

Drug Courts are a much less expensive way of handling drug cases in the
criminal justice system, thus they may result in more people being arrested
and processed, many of whom would not have been arrested or would have been
diverted. Thus, drug courts may be expanding the number of people hurt by
the drug war.

"Offenders first must plead guilty". Drug Courts are creating a separate
system of justice for drug offenders, a system that does not rely on the
key traditions of an adversary system of justice and due process, a system
where the defense, prosecution and judge work as a team to force the
offender into a treatment program.

Recent studies of the drug court system in Denver revealed the following
undesirable occurrences: Enthusiasm of police and prosecutors massively
increased cases filed in drug court. Increased small-time arrests (buy and
bust arrests). Shear numbers overwhelmed the drug court. Accumulating bench
warrants. Leads to a court that neither conducts trials nor hears motions
due to case numbers, increasing exclusionary criteria. The number of
incarcerations increased though the percentage of drug defendants receiving
prison sentences remained constant, the increased numbers of persons in
drug court increased total number of people sent to prison.

Drug war has the same face with a new name!

Larry Seguin
Lisbon, New York