PRO & CON: DRUG COURTS AN EFFECTIVE ALTERNATIVE FOR OFFENDERS?

YES: Done right, drug courts lower recidivism and cut
costs.

Georgia's drug courts are positioned to become a model of effective,
evidence-based interventions for the Southeast and the nation. Drug
courts keep people clean and in treatment longer than other treatment
programs. Staying in treatment leads to better outcomes. Drug courts
also reduce recidivism and save money.

A state audit report released last year found that Georgia's drug
court participants have significantly lower recidivism rates than drug
offenders who serve prison time and cost millions of dollars less than
prison. The report recommended the expanded use of drug courts.

Gov. Nathan Deal has called for an increased use of effective
alternatives to costly prisons, like drug courts.

While support for drug courts is quickly gaining momentum, they face
an incredible threat: their own success.

Drug courts require tireless work by trained, competent,
collaborative criminal justice and treatment teams, and rely on
donated time from the judiciary, prosecutors and public defenders.
Drug courts receive minimal funding ($10 million annually, half of
which is local funding), yet achieve the most critical outcomes for
Georgia: reducing crime and improving lives.

If asked to continue these monumental tasks while also absorbing
offenders diverted from prison without the infrastructure and
financial support needed, drug courts face becoming another failed
criminal justice experiment. How can we prevent this?

First, drug courts should target high-risk, nonviolent adult offenders
to maximize positive outcomes for the individual and public safety.
When we say high-risk, we are talking about the probability of
committing additional crimes, not the probability that someone will be
violent. Targeting those who are most likely to re-offend who also
have serious substance abuse problems means providing both intensive
legal supervision and treatment.

Programs that target individuals with a high risk for reoffending are
up to five times more effective in reducing recidivism compared to
those that target low-risk individuals.

Second, drug courts should implement practices that work (such as
relapse prevention treatment and changing the way offenders think and
see the world, known as cognitive behavioral therapy). They should
avoid relying on practices shown to have neutral or negative effects
for drug-involved offenders (such as self-esteem programs).

Addiction is one of the most powerful forces in existence. Relapse is
part of recovery. If people could stop using drugs because a judge
told them to, we would not need drug courts. In order to overcome such
a consuming force, drug courts must keep close tabs on their
participants and provide effective treatment services.

Drug courts should demand accountability from offenders in their
programs. Drug testing should occur randomly two to three times a
week. Sanctions for noncompliance and incentives for doing well are
essential to changing behavior. Drug courts should use an established
treatment curriculum.

Third, developing standards for Georgia's drug court programs will
provide much-needed guidance to localities who want start a program,
will improve practices and accountability in existing programs, ensure
responsible use of taxpayer dollars and allow for sound drug court
program evaluation for Georgia.

Georgia should embrace this unique moment to set the bar for cutting
costs, reducing crime and saving lives. But drug courts need continued
assistance, an infusion of funding and the political commitment to
support a sustainable model.

Wendy P. Guastaferro is an assistant professor of Criminal Justice at
Georgia State University and the program evaluator for the DeKalb
County Drug Court.

NO: Claims about drug courts aren't supported by research.

By Margaret Dooley-Sammuli and Nastassia Walsh

Drug addiction is a health problem. So why are U.S. drug policies
still seeking solutions in the criminal justice system?

The use of drug courts -- programs that seek to reduce drug use through
mandated drug treatment and close judicial oversight -- has grown
dramatically over the last 20 years thanks to moving success stories
and enthusiastic proponents within the criminal justice system. These
success stories are real and deserve to be celebrated, but they
provide only a partial picture.

Based on our own analyses of the existing research, we have
independently come to the same conclusion that several academics and
even the federal government's General Accountability Office (GAO)
have: Claims that drug courts have significantly reduced costs,
incarceration or drug use are unsupported by the evidence.

More troubling is that drug courts may actually increase the criminal
justice involvement of people with drug problems. The widespread use
of incarceration as a sanction in drug courts -- for failing a drug
test, missing an appointment or having a hard time following the
strict rules of the court -- means that some participants end up
serving more time behind bars than if they had not entered drug court.
And some participants may actually face longer sentences when they are
ejected from drug court than those who did not enter drug court in the
first place (often because they lost the opportunity to plead to a
lesser charge).

Even people who are not in drug court may be negatively affected by
them, since drug courts have been associated with increased arrests
and incarceration in some cases. This is often because law enforcement
and others believe people will "get help" if they are arrested. But
drug courts have limited capacity and strict eligibility requirements,
which means that many of those arrested end up conventionally sentenced.

Treatment through the criminal justice system, including drug courts,
is not found to be more effective than treatment in the community --
though it is significantly more expensive. A federal study by the
Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, for
example, showed that people referred to treatment from the criminal
justice system do not fare better than those referred through other
means (such as a loved one or an employer). And, according to the
Washington State Institute for Public Policy, drug courts do not
reduce recidivism by even a half a percentage point more than
treatment in the community without a judge's oversight.

More than 1.4 million people are arrested every year simply for
possessing a small amount of drugs for personal use -- about half for
marijuana. Only some of them have a drug problem and need treatment.
Even if drug courts were expanded to scale to cover all of the people
arrested for a drug law violation, between 500,000 and 1 million
people would still be ejected from a drug court and sentenced
conventionally every year.

Instead, we need drug courts to focus on more serious law violations
that are linked to a drug problem and to expand access to treatment
and other health interventions in the community so that they are
available when people seek them. About 7.8 million Americans want drug
treatment, according to the 2009 U.S. National Survey of Drug Use and
Health; this is more than the number of people facing lung, breast and
prostate cancer combined. Many people who want treatment can't access
it outside the criminal justice system. This must change.

Margaret Dooley-Sammuli is deputy state director, Southern California,
for the Drug Policy Alliance, and authored "Drug Courts Are Not the
Answer."

Nastassia Walsh is research associate at the Justice Policy Institute
in Washington, D.C., and author of "Addicted to Courts."