NCJ Number
168068
Date Published
Unknown
Length
8 pages
Annotation
This is a technical assistance manual for community anti-drug coalitions.
Abstract
America's courts are becoming increasingly clogged with drug-related cases. With few jail or detention alternatives, limited drug treatment options and overloaded probation departments, judges have struggled to move cases through the system expeditiously while simultaneously maintaining defendants' legal and constitutional rights and responding to legislative and public pressures to treat drug cases seriously. Many jurisdictions have developed successful court-ordered treatment and rehabilitation programs that recognize and work with the realities of drug use, treating non-violent drug dependent defendants as individuals in need of treatment rather than people in need of punishment. Successful implementation of a treatment-oriented drug court requires: (1) extensive preprogram planning; (2) careful groundwork with leaders of all the major agencies involved in criminal case processing; (3) strong judicial leadership; (4) a needs assessment; (5) reconnaissance within the community; (6) an inventory of ancillary services; (7) computerized management information support; and (8) evaluation of the drug court, reported to the community regularly. Notes