Drugs such as marijuana and cocaine and amphetamines and heroin together with drug-addiction are correlated to crime in a number of ways. Being a criminal offence to use, to be in possession, to produce, or to dispense these drugs, they are categorized as prohibited. The upshots of usage of drugs, including aggression, including robbery to obtain funds to acquire drugs, including aggression against competitor traffickers, affect the society every day and are criminal effects. A number of treatment alternatives are on hand to tackle inmates' requirements and conditions in the correctional system. Drug treatment programs in correctional centres most often than not are successful in averting patients' going back to
unlawful behaviour, but are unsuccessful most often than not if they are not connected to community-centred programs that continue treatment when the patient leaves prison. The most successful drug treatments programs in prison have diminished the re-arrest rate by 25% to 50% (Belenko 33). The aim of correctional facilities such as prison is twofold; first, it punishes wrongdoers and secondly it rehabilitates criminals and individuals with deviant behaviour. The French philosopher Michel Foucault argued that punishment has changed over a period from instilling discipline in the body to instilling discipline in the soul. The rehabilitation of convicted criminals is an important facet of the contemporary criminal justice system. The criminal justice system nowadays is working to rehabilitate inmates and the prison rehabilitation programs vary in degrees, type, and form from prison to prison. In the past years, rehabilitation was focused straight at 'reforming the personality’ of offenders, its aim now is on averting reoffending.
Prison program: Drug treatment
In a similar fashion, drug Treatment programs in Prison are designed to rehabilitate drug addicts in prison. For instance, the "Delaware Model," a continuing examination of wide-ranging treatment methods for prisoners who are addicted to drug abuse illustrates that prison-based treatment programs, work release therapeutic community, community-based aftercare and therapeutic community surroundings included; cuts the chances of re-arrest by 57 percent and cut the odds of relapsing into drugs by 37 percent. One quality essential for successful programs is progressing, wide-ranging aftercare in the society. This decreases the probability that an addict will be detained and found guilty another time (Thomas 16).
History of Drug Treatment:
Using drug relates to violent crime (statistic)
Statistics show that drug addicts are more prone than nonusers to perpetrate crimes. Arrested criminals, are found often to be ‘under the influence’ at the time they carried out the offence and that drugs breed violence. It is the weighing up the nature and degree of the effects of drugs on criminal activities that necessitate dependable information about the crime and the lawbreaker be accessible and meanings of terms to be consistent. In the face of challenging data, it is not possible to establish quantitatively the influence of drug addiction on the happening of crime. Drugs are linked to most criminal activities through the outcomes they have on the addict's actions and by breeding violence and other prohibited goings-on associated with drug trafficking. Drug-related crimes and the drug-using way of life play a key part in the U.S. crime issue. More than 50% of arrested criminals in the US test positive for illicit drugs (Thomas 17). According to the same institute, use of and addiction on drug is strongly associated to robbery and assets crime more than it is to violent offences. A majority of addicts carries out crimes to obtain money to purchase drugs. According to the National Institute of Justice, at least 25% of men who carry out acts of domestic violence have drug problems and that drug-addicted women are more prone to suffering abuse (Thomas 18). The 2004 survey of Inmates in State and Federal penitentiaries found out that 32% of State convicts and 26% of Federal prisoners admitted to having committed the crimes that had led to their arrest while under the influence of drugs. In State prisons, drug offenders and property offenders recorded the highest admission rates for being under the drugs influence when committing a crime at 44% and 39% respectively. In Federal penitentiaries, drug offenders (32%) and violent crimes convicts (24%) reported the highest occurrence of being under drugs influence when they committed their crimes.
Efforts to prevent drug abuse using retribution systems do not succeed since these attempts do no tackle the multifaceted basis of drug abuse, which start in the milieu of family issues and deviant conduct. Many go to prison. Few reform in prison.
Cause Overcrowding in Prison
The vicious cycle of arrest, imprisonment, discharge, and re-arrest is very common. As indicate by various nationwide studies, more than half of the prison population test positive for illegal drugs (Taylor et al. 3-4). The U.S. state and federal prisons and jails hold approximately 1.9 million convicts (Beck and Harrison). This means that the cause of the high-prison population in the United States is drug abuse. Most of the inmates are finally released from the prisons to go back to the community. However, about six hundred thousand state and federal convicts are nor returning to prison each year. A majority of those returning are drug addicts; therefore, keeping the cycle rolling.
Effectively cutting that cycle and related crime is largely dependent on successfully treating drug-abusing criminals. A number of treatment alternatives are on hand to tackle inmates' requirements and conditions in the correctional system. One such alternative program is the Drug Courts program. Drug Courts are judicially administered court dockets that deal with cases of nonviolent drug abusing lawbreakers under the juvenile, family, adult, and tribal justice structures. Drug Courts function under a specific mould in which the courts, prosecutors, defence bar, the police, mental health services, community services, and the treatment services work jointly to assist nonviolent lawbreakers find restoration in healing and turn into productive human beings. This essay will argue that argue Drugs Courts program can help reduce the number of ex prisoners who are being sent back to prison each year. The essay will also argue that the program helps reduce the population in the American prisons. The objective is to summarize general workings and usefulness of drug courts all over the country and to underline possible concerns and areas where additional study is required.
DRUG COURTS
In 1989, Florida officials set up the nation’s pioneer drug court. This unique court was calculated to entrench drug treatment fully into the prison system and the criminal justice system in general. The court, for criminal with a past of drug abuse for their addiction treatment, while concurrently guaranteeing control, and approval when necessary, from the courts. The movement for a different court to rule on drug offenders come about from the swiftly sprouting truth that the nation’s resolution to tackle drug abuse by employing law enforcement methods would keep on posing considerable problems for the criminal justice system. In 2004, 53% of prisoners incarcerated in state prison were identified as drug addicts or users, but merely 15% were getting professional help (Mumola and Karberg 7). Drug use and addiction linked criminal activities remain an expensive load to the American society, one that most prison drugs treatment programs have failed to halt. In 2001, the bureau of National Drug Control Policy approximated that in 1998 prohibited use of drug cost the exchequer $31.1 billion in criminal justice costs, $30.1 billion in lost output and $2.9 billion in costs connected to property damage and discrimination (Belenko 2).
Ever since 1989, drug courts have increased all over the country. Presently, there are more than 1,500 Drug courts functioning in all states (Belenko 3). This drug courts are a reflection of the aspiration to change the stress from trying to battle drug crimes by diminishing drugs supply to tackling the demand for drugs by treating drug craving. Drug courts employ the criminal justice system to tackle addiction by the use of an incorporated set of communal and legal services as an alternative to depending on sanctions through imprisonment or probation.
In spite of broad signs of drug court efficiency, more than twenty years after the first Drug court a number of questions linger. Since drug courts are planned and ran at the state level, there are deep-seated disparities that make cross-jurisdictional evaluation hard. While the underlying structure may be similar from one program to the next (a diversion program for particular types of low-level defendants who have shown a connection between their drug abuse or addiction and criminal acts), protocols for arbitration, detailed selection standards, ways of control and revocation measures do vary radically. The localism that is the system of drug court design makes efforts to make out best practices very hard. Nonetheless, we can make out explicit elements from diverse drug courts that are significant elements for the success of the program.
Working of Drug Courts
There are commonly two approaches for drug courts i.e. deferred prosecution and post-adjudication programs. In a deferred prosecution, defendants who that meet some particular eligibility prerequisites are sidetracked to the drug court system before pleading to a charge.
Defendants are not obliged to plead guilty, and those who successfully see through the drug court program are not further prosecuted. If one does not complete the program, he or she is prosecuted. In the post-adjudication approach, defendants are obliged to plead guilty to their charges, but the ruling of their cases is deferred or left pending as they take part in the drug court program. Successful conclusion of the program earns the former user or addict in a waived sentence and occasionally an obliteration of the crime and the charges. However, if one does not successfully meet the standards of the drug court, for example, a routine return of drug abuse or addiction, they will be taken back to the criminal court to face the ruling on the guilty plea.
To be eligible, defendants have to be charged with being in possession of drugs or a nonviolent crime and must have positively tested for drugs or have proved drug abuse trouble during arrest (Fluellen and Trone 5) and have no present or previous violent crime record.
Programs characteristically run for a period between half and one year. However, some addicts stay longer in the program. Addicts and users must see through the whole program phase to graduate. Successful completion is dependent upon staying free of drugs and arrests for a specific period. Participants have to go to regular status hearings in front of a judge alongside judicial and medical staff who screen the development of every person. Sanctions including more court proceedings, drug tests and short stints in jails are enforced for participants who do not comply at the court’s discretion.
ADVANTAGES OF DRUG CENTRES
After more that twenty years in operation, studies reveal that numerous drug courts, diminish recidivism and save taxpayer’s money. Data from a number of researches who collected data from one to 95 courts reveal that people who are discharged from this program are re-arrested less than other prison program groups (Belenko 44). The decline in re-arrest rates is the main contributor to cost-savings reported for most drug courts (Belenko 44).
Recidivism
Individuals who have graduated from drug courts are, according to recent appraisals, less expected to be re-arrested than individuals routed through other prison mechanisms. Results from drug court assessments show that involvement in drug courts upshots, in fewer re-arrests and re-convictions, or more extended periods between arrests or relapses. A breakdown of study findings from 76 drug courts established that there is a 10% decline in re-arrest, with pre-adjudication courts occasioning a 13% drop in re-arrest (Aos, Miller and Drake 4). An investigation of 30 drug court assessments established an average 13% fall in the rate of re-convictions for fresh crimes (Aos, Miller and Drake 4). A meta-analysis of 57 researches approximated that involvement in a drug court program would create an 8% reduction in crime when not compared to any treatment (Aos, Miller and Drake 9). An assessment of drug courts in Florida, which trailed drug court participant development for 2 years, discovers a considerably lower re-arrest rate (12% vs. 40%) for the drug court program participants in comparison to other prison systems groups (Belenko 33). This represents a 70% lowering of re-arrest rates. In New York, six drug courts occasioned an average of 29% fall in re-arrest calculated more than 3 years after participants’ first arrest (Rempel et al. 2). Recent studies have also shown that these gains are not lost as time goes. A study carried out in Oregon drug court discovered a 24% fall in drug arrests for former graduates thirteen years after the first admission into the program (Finigan, Carey and Cox 28).
Cost Savings
Assessment of the total resultant costs and profits of drug courts nationally chiefly discover that drug courts save the taxpayer money when evaluated against easy probation and/or imprisonment. This can be accounted for by decreases in arrests, case dispensation, jail use and prosecution costs. While not every individual that goes through the Drug courts would have automatically been sent to prison, for those individuals who are imprisoned it costs the taxpayer approximately $23,000 per inmate yearly. On the other hand, the average yearly cost is approximated to be $4,300 per individual who is taking part in a drug court program. In 2005, the Government Accountability Office established that seven drug courts that went through evaluation had net benefits of between $1,000 and $15,000 per member in the program because of diminished recidivism and evaded costs to prospective victims. Other assessments of 11 drug courts in Washington, Oregon, Missouri and Kentucky also discovered considerable cost savings. The Oregon drug court was approximated to save $4,000 per participating individual owing to diminished recidivism and imprisonment. According to Belenko, 2005, (45) six drug courts in Washington save approximately $6,800 per participating individual owing to diminished second arrests victimization expenses. A research sampling five drug courts in Washington established that $1.74 in profit for each dollar spent in drug courts. This was as a result of diminished court costs linked to a fall in recidivism. A St. Louis research discovered that the primary cost for a person in a drug courts was higher than that of someone finishing probation. However, two years after the end of the program, those who went through a drug court system saved $2,600 per individual, ensuing from lesser jail costs, diminished crime victimization, and healthcare expenses (Belenko 45). According to Fluellen and Trone, a 1997 nationwide analysis of court managers in 97 drug courts showed savings of $400,000 per annum accrued from the decline in pretrial stays and prison facilities alone (1). Finigan, et al. posited that the Multnomah County assessment established that a decade of running a drug court outcome was $9 million in savings when only case processing is considered (50). When factors like decreased recidivism and prison time and the savings owing to decreased victimization were taken into account, the court was found to have saved the taxpayers around $88 million. Two Michigan counties saved the taxpayers about $1 million, over two years, which was $3,000 per drug courts program participant. This was caused by the fewer re-arrests, diminished probation administration time and less fresh court cases (Finigan, Carey and Cox 40).
Long-term Treatment
Another benefit of drug courts is that they present adults and young people with right to use to long-standing, wide-ranging services even as they remain under the stringent administration of the court. Those who take part in the drug courts system report to court as often as once per week. During this period, the drug court re-evaluates the participant’s development. Drug courts permit problems of non-observance to be tackled more instantaneously than in conventional illegal or felony cases.
Enhancing teamwork
Another benefit of drug courts is that they are founded upon a “team” model and present the chance for judges, prosecutors, defence lawyers, court clerks, close relatives, school managers, drug management suppliers, probation administrators, children welfare employees, and law enforcement officers to function together and in harmony to help individuals in making long lasting behavioural transformations. Every member of the drug court team presents a distinctive viewpoint and expertise that could aid in advancing the triumph of addicts or abusers in the program.
Reduce overcrowding in Jails
The incarceration of nonviolent drug offenders is a massive contributor to the number of convicts in state and federal penitentiaries. .Drug courts do not only help cut the tax payers dollar used to maintain people in prison but does it through the reduction of overcrowding in jail. Compulsory sentencing accounts for jail congestion alongside the earlier noted souring of the justice system budgets.
Participants of Drug Court Have a Good Retention or Graduation Rates
Measures of drug rehabilitation program success in general consist of program retention rates. This is the quantity of drug rehabilitation program participants who have effectively gone through the program and graduated and the number that are active with reference to the total of participants who have registered in the program. Drug courts have a very high retention rates in comparison to other programs, and as such are more successful.
CONCLUSION & RECOMMENDATIONS
Studies up to date have been consistently reporting that that drug courts are accomplishing significant benefits. However, there practices, though mostly unfamiliar, which cause accomplishment or breakdown of a drug court. Of huge interest is the argument that drug courts might be escalating the quantity of individuals under arrest for drug crimes, rather than decrease, in the long term, the quantity of individuals who go through the criminal justice system. Studies have not yet zeroed in on the establishment of whether individuals who are taken through drug courts would have ended up in the criminal justice system and consequently into the conventional prison programs if not for the drug court. The use of drug courts should be used in a large scale to solve the twin problem of drugs and crime and that of overpopulation in our prison system.
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