Florida Drug Courts, Capstone Project Example

Florida Drug Courts

The effectiveness of the drug courts as a therapeutic justice intervention will be explored. These drug treatment courts are founded upon the model which had been established by the City of Miami, County of Dade court system over two decades ago as a response to the rise in the social challenges of drug abuse and criminal activities. The popularity of the drug courts in the State of Florida and the nation will be examined. The impacts of the therapeutic justice interventions on the quality of life of the enrollees will be reviewed. The element of recidivism by the drug court enrollees will be examined. This research paper will review the perspectives of King and Pasquarella (2009), Lilley (2013, Shaffer (2010) and Wittouk et al. (2013) in order to evaluate the remedial effects of the drug court interventions on the social challenges of drug abuse and crime.

Over twenty years ago, the administrators in the City of Miami in the County of Dade founded the country’s initial drug court. This particular court was established in order to provide offenders with the opportunity of receiving therapeutic rehabilitation for the drug abuse habits. The drug court has proven to be an alternative for the offenders whosecrimes are narcotics related.  The narcotics abuse offenders have been provided with monitoring and penalties when it has been deemed necessary by the court systems (King & Pasquarella, 2009).

The need for a distinct type of court in order to provide sentencing to narcotics abuse offenders has been derived from the evolutionary perspective that the country’s decision to confront the social challenge of narcoticsabuse by the sole application of the resources of the police departmentswouldcontinue to pose a substantial problem for the court systems(King & Pasquarella, 2009). Ten years ago, over 53% of the individuals who had been incarcerated in state penitentiaries were categorized as possessing a narcotics abuse challenge. It had been assess that a minimal percentage were receiving rehabilitation for these addictions. Criminal activities which have been related to narcotics continue to be a challenge which has a non-cost avoidant aspect. Over 220,000 narcotics abuse offenders have been subscribed to the therapeutic justice intervention model. This has been the response which resulted from the unsuccessful attempts to limit the narcotics supply which had been available to abusers (King & Pasquarella, 2009).

It had been estimated that the national narcotics control authorities that the expenses which have been incurred by the American public over the past decade totaled to over $31.1 billion. These are expenses which are related to the criminal justice system. The estimates for damages to property and the victims which have been injured by the criminal activities of the narcotics abuser who are offenders is assessed at over $2.9 billion. The lost production which could be attributed to workers who have been functioning drug addicts has been assessed at over $30 billion(King & Pasquarella, 2009).

As a reaction to the rising crack cocaine consumption and the increasing rate ofcriminal activities, the government of the United States formed the Drug DiscretionaryGrant in order to expand the initiatives which had been commenced in Miami. In the span of half of a decade, the number of drug courts in the United States increased by over twenty five times the numbers which had been available in the mid-1990s. In the past few years, studies have shown that that a number of the narcotics abuse offenders who were enrolled in the therapeutic justice intervention programs had given in to recidivism. Research has also shown that the leniency provided to the narcotics offenders by the drug courts facilitated many of the narcotics offenders who had been enrollees to return to criminally based activities (Lilley, 2013).

Today there are over two thousand drug courts in the nation. Notwithstanding, the support that drug courts have received with regards to their methods of intervention has been significant. Research has shown that some of the court systems have been more effective in the treatment of the narcotics abusers that others. The quality of the most effective drug courts are one of the limitations of this research and require further study (Lilley, 2013). The drug court paradigm is an inherent implementation of the therapeutic justice system.

The cooperative perspective of the drug courtsmodel, the quality of thetransactions which occurs between the offenders whom are narcotics abuser and the Judges and the delegating of the rehabilitative services for narcotics addictions are aligned within the therapeutic perspective of the jurisprudence system. These aspects consider the rehabilitative needs of the offenders who are narcotic abusers (Shaffer, 2010; Wittouck et al., 2013).Studies have shown that the drug treatment courts facilitate a decrease in the consumption of narcotics among the enrollees. Many of the enrollees in the drug treatment courts diminished their consumption of illicit drugs away from narcotics (i.e., heroin and cocaine) to marijuana. There are relatively scarce numbers of studies on the longitudinal outcomes of the drug court enrollees(Shaffer, 2010; Wittouck et al., 2013). This is a limitation of this researchpaper.

The enrollment in the drug treatment courts reduced the incidences of court interactions for alcohol abuse related offenses (Shaffer, 2010; Wittouck et al., 2013). The quality of life domains of the drug treatment court subscribers is of great significance. Many of the enrollees in the rehabilitative narcotics abusers programs suffer from homelessness, poverty and unemployment. These are quality of life issues which must be considered with regards to the effectiveness of the therapeutic justice interventions for the narcotics abusers. Notwithstanding, the research has shown that the quality of life for many of the narcotics abusers increased as an outcome of the drug intervention courts (Shaffer, 2010; Wittouck et al., 2013).

Conclusion

At the jurisprudence levels, the drug courts were initiated in order to channel the offenders who had been narcotics abusers toward the appropriate therapeutics intervention in order to minimize the criminal activities which resulted from the narcotics consumption of the offenders. Many of the drug courts in Florida and other jurisdictions have distinct criteria with regards to inclusion into the therapeutic rehabilitation programs which are administrated by the drug courts. The mutual components of the drug courts are the therapeutic rehabilitation of the narcotics and alcohol abuse offenders. These services are providing in conjunction with a congenial approach and ongoing monitoring by the drug court systems. The drug courts which have been crated as a result of the initial drug court established in the City of Miami, County of Dade have proven to be an effective intervention in the deterrence of the criminal activities, damages and expenditures caused by the offenders who are narcotics abusers.

References

King, R. S. & Pasquarella, J. (2009). Drug courts: A review of the evidence. The Sentencing Project Researching for Advocacy and Reform.

Liiley, D. R. (2013). Drug courts and community crime rates: A nationwide analysis of jurisdiction level outcomes. Journal of Criminology, 2013(571760): 1- 12.

Shaffer, D. K. (2010). Looking inside the black box of the drug courts: a meta- analytic review. Justice Quarterly, 2010: 1- 29.

Wittouck, C., Dekkers, A., De Ruyver, B., Vanderplessen, W., & Vander Laenen, F. (2013). The impacts of drug treatment courts on recovery: A systematic view. The Scientific World, 2013(493679): 1- 12.