NCJ Number
160127
Date Published
1996
Length
36 pages
Annotation
This report presents an analysis and recommendations from a policy panel of criminal justice experts regarding ways police, prosecutors, courts, and corrections agencies can work more effectively with communities to stop alcohol and drug abuse.
Abstract
The panel met in the summer and fall of 1995 in Chicago, Minneapolis, and Kansas City, Mo., where community advocates and experts from every facet of the criminal justice field presented testimony. Panel members reached agreement on several themes. First, criminal justice components fail to collaborate with each other and with their communities; second, citizens have been shut out of their rightful roles in the criminal justice system; third, programs for prevention and treatment of substance abuse are critically lacking at every level of the criminal justice system; and fourth, money and time are being wasted because of misguided policies for addressing substance abuse. In keeping with these themes and based on deliberations and input from the public hearings and other sources, the panel developed six recommendations for helping the criminal justice system respond more effectively to substance abuse. The recommendations are to repeal mandatory sentencing, expand drug treatment throughout the criminal justice system, collaborate within the criminal justice system, work with communities, form partnerships between police and communities, and hold public officials and criminal justice agencies accountable for results. Suggested resources for communities and a 48-item bibliography