NCJ Number
191361
Journal
Governing Volume: 14 Issue: 11 Dated: August 2001 Pages: 62-64
Date Published
August 2001
Length
3 pages
Annotation
This article examines the pros and cons of drug courts as expressed by judges in Texas and California.
Abstract
The Texas legislature has passed a new law that requires all counties in the State to establish drug courts, a special judicial regime that has been spreading rapidly throughout the country for the past decade. Rather than sentence drug offenders to prison or probation, drug courts put users in treatment programs. If they can become drug free, their drug-use conviction is often cleared. If they cannot, a judge can apply sanctions. Judge George Godwin of Harris County, Texas, does not like this law. He opposes the drug-court system as an unproven, expensive, and unnecessary replacement for probation. Other opponents of the law advise that no solid research on drug courts has proven that they are more cost-effective than traditional probation approaches. Research has been hampered by significant differences in drug courts and the absence of comparisons with drug offenders managed through traditional probation programs. Aside from whether drug courts work, there are questions about mandated treatment and who will pay for it. These issues are surfacing in both Texas, where drug courts are being set up, and in California, where they have long existed. In both States, concerns about funding for effective drug treatment programs are being expressed.