NCJ Number
163338
Date Published
1996
Length
122 pages
Annotation
This document contains the Proceedings of the 1995 National Symposium on the Implementation and Operation of Drug Courts, held in Portland, Oregon, December 3-6, 1995.
Abstract
The symposium brought together multidisciplinary teams and individuals who had been involved with drug court programs to: address the diversity of issues that emerged in the course of implementing drug court programs; develop consensus regarding what has been learned; and identify future tasks and issues. Conclusions reached by symposium participants included the following: (1) Drug court programs have introduced new roles, philosophies, and relationships among and within the agencies involved in implementing these programs; (2) The judicial process and the treatment process can reinforce each other through the partnership created by the drug court program; (3) The structure of the drug court and the internalized sense of discipline it promotes on the part of participants are extremely important for the drug court population; and (4) Public policy regarding substance addiction needs to take into account the chemical and biologic processes and sociologic factors associated with addiction rather than simply view it as a moral weakness and a condition over which an individual has control. Appendixes