NCJ Number
87129
Journal
Bewaehrungshilfe Volume: 29 Issue: 3 Dated: (1982) Pages: 223-231
Date Published
1982
Length
9 pages
Annotation
New legislation pertaining to the sentencing and treatment of drug offenders went into effect in West Germany on January 1, 1982, raising implementation and impact questions that affect both criminal justice and therapeutic agencies.
Abstract
The law provides that offenders sentenced to imprisonment for an offense directly caused by substance addiction can substitute up to 2 years of their sentences by voluntarily entering an authorized drug treatment program. If a convicted addict is treated at a freedom-confining institution, the therapeutic institutionalization can offset as much as two-thirds of the criminal incarceration sentence. Criticism concerns the failure to include offenses caused by alcoholism and to specifically distinguish addiction to illicit substances from dependence on legally sold drugs. Other ambiguities relate to multiple sentences and the accreditation of treatment institutions. Furthermore, difficulties are anticipated with the treatment intake arrangements, which must be completed before sentencing, and with monitoring treatment progress and reprocessing dropouts. The new procedures are not clearly differentiated from suspended sentencing or sentencing under conditional release, nor do they solve the dispositional problems created by the majority of addicted offenders unwilling to undergo treatment. A total of 29 footnotes are given.