Drug Court Program in NJ - Term Paper Example

Drug Court Program in NJ Drug court ity is staffed with experts focused on substance abuse and recovery issues. Substance abuse is a polished term for any substance, mainly drugs, for mood-altering purposes. But the broader definition of substance abuse is not limited to drugs only. The professionals mainly focus on the addictive property of such substances. As an isolated system, the program is technically very sound. But when one look at the program as part of the community with associated costs, things don’t look so optimistic. The reason behind such a pessimistic reality is the lack of holistic approach towards drugs and associated crimes. Thesis Statement: The thesis statement which has been used in this paper is that: There is an immediate need to expand the drug court programs and the expansion should be in terms of program structure, underlying ideas, area of jurisdiction, and manpower. Outcomes of Current System: The existing Drug Court Program, though very well structured, has not been very successful. The program started in 1996-97 and by 1999, it got well structured and the number of such courts reached 472 (Franco 2010 p.5). Drug courts started a societal shift toward therapeutic jurisprudence. The focus moved to the person rather than the crime. Frequent personal interactions with the professionals of the drug court team have helped people to recover to some extent. Though the program created more productive people for the society, in creating a healthy society it has not been very successful. In the year 2010-11, the percentage of employed people entering the program is 29%. Upon graduating the number rose to 84% (New Jersey Courts, 2011, p. 24). Now there can be some discrepancies in those numbers. The real scenario can be seen from the health benefits data. Upon entering the program, 15% of the people were considered healthy; but while graduating, only 48% of the people were labeled as healthy. Though 33% rise is very attractive, the percentage of unhealthy people is quite substantial at 52% (New Jersey Courts, 2011, p.24). This staggering percentage is a clear indicator of the fact that the program, though very rigorous, is not very effective to create people of sound mind and body. It seems like a short time fix which is more evident from the 2009-10 annual report. Here the health benefits increased from 17% to 53% upon graduating (New Jersey Courts, 2010, p.20). Impact of Program Procedures: Drug Courts are typical machine like response based system which is not the proper way to improve the human mental and physical status. This system is condition based. A list of expected behavior is presented to the person who enrolled for the program. Though the program is structured for one year, generally it takes more time. In fact, unless the desired changes are not reflected on the person’s nature, the program will continue (DRUG COURTS IN NEW JERSEY: PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE, 2000). The problem with this approach is that the participant may not find it convenient to change him or herself in a true sense, as it is very difficult to work on human mind. So most of the time, the program is practicing hypocrisy. Research indicates that most returning to drug use within the first 6 to 12 months after release from prison (Franco 2010 p.13). It’s also a reality that 9 out of 10 cases are settled by plea bargain (Urban Institute). This negates the sole purpose. An offender may be punished for a crime, but how that affects his or her future thinking is the real issue (Alarid et al. 2007, p.211).There are some very big bluffs about the program. One of these is the eligibility criterion for the program. People, who seem to be violent, or have some violent past, or are sexually predatory, are completely ineligible for the program (DRUG COURTS IN NEW JERSEY: PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE, 2000, p.3). It seems that program has been designed for the people on whom psychological pressure can be easily applied. This can be another reason for lack of health among the graduates as mentioned in the Annual report of New Jersey Courts. Therefore, “Questions remain about the extent to which drug courts reduce substance abuse among participants” (Franco 2010 p.12). Interaction of Agents and the Community: There are great hurdles for the probation officers to work properly without the strong community organizations. People generally join as probation officers and parole as it give them a chance to help people and protect the community. Though it may sound very simple job, in reality it’s very complex. There are two dimensions of this complexity. The first dimension is their role as a “therapeutic change agent” where they have to give advice the concerned person about the necessary changes that the court expects from him or her. This role of the probation officer has a sharp contrast with the other dimension of his role and that is of a law enforcement officer. Drug courts orders ‘mandatory drug testing’ and ‘intensive probation supervision’ (Franco 2010 p.10). As an enforcement officer, the probation officer has to look for any default in part of the concerned person, and if so, he has to take the necessary steps as prescribed under the law (Alarid et al. 2007, p.90). Basically drug courts have created artificial parents in form of probation officers who can gently advise as well as strictly rule. Parenting by the community has gained importance. This leads to our next argument. There is an urgent need to expand the basic ideas of drug court to other forms of court. A sustainable drug diversion program is the sum of learning and adapting to emerging challenges (King & Pasquarella, 2009, p.2). The issue should be understood that the individual does not operate in vacant. What he does is highly connected to the other events of his or her life. The number of cold blooded criminals is insignificant compared to the total number of crimes. Most of the time, crime is the result of some unsettled mind. The biggest foundation of drug court is that it understands this fact. Drug court’s “treatment approach” should be expanded to solve the social problems like juvenile crime, domestic abuse, and child abuse & neglect (DRUG COURTS IN NEW JERSEY: PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE, 2000, p.20). Over the last two decades, the family related cases have increased substantially. And it has been seen that in these highly complex cases, there is a significant role of substance abuse. So, time has come to upgrade the process of quarantining a person psychologically and correcting him or her. Now the focus should be on the family itself and more precisely, on the role of mother (McCord & Sayre-McCord, 2007, p. 225).And if successful, the problem of drug abuse will decline considerably. Conclusion: Setting up a wide and complex network of judicial system requires a lot of funding. Currently the local municipality keeps part of their budget for employment of judges and probation officers (DRUG COURTS IN NEW JERSEY: PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE, 2000, p.7). Clearly the available fund cannot support the expansion of the system. Hence, voluntary participation has a significant role to play. The purpose of the Drug Court is very clear: to help people to be responsible and to be an asset for the society. Basically this should be the purpose of the whole judiciary system. A robbery offender should also get a scope of similar treatment that is offered by the Drug court (NJ Today, 2012). This aspect of the drug court needs to be extended. At the same time, an expansion of the program processes to include wide variety of persons and a more holistic approach to include the family and community is also required. References DRUG COURTS IN NEW JERSEY: PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE, (2000), A report prepared by the 1998 Class of Leadership New Jersey in furtherance of its class project on drug courts in New Jersey (Client’s Material) Alarid, L.F., Cromwell, P.F. & Rolando V. Del Carmen (2007), Community Based Corrections, USA: Thomson Wadsworth Franco, C. (2010), Congressional research services, Title: Drug Courts: Background, Effectiveness, and Policy Issues for Congress, retrieved on April 5, 2012 on: http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/R41448.pdf King, R.S. Pasquarella, J. (April 2009), The Sentencing Project, Title: Drug Courts: A Review of the Evidence, retrieved on April 5, 2012 on: http://www.sentencingproject.org/doc/dp_drugcourts.pdf McCord, J. McCord, G.S. (2007), Crime and Family: Selected Essays of Joan McCord, USA: Temple University Press NJ Today (2012), Measure to Expand NJ Drug Court Program Advances, April 4, 2012, retrieved on April 5, 2012 on: http://njtoday.net/2012/04/04/measure-to-expand-nj-drug-court-program-advances/ New Jersey Courts (2011), Annual Report 2010-11, retrieved on April 5, 2012 on http://www.judiciary.state.nj.us/annual_reports/ap_2011.pdf New Jersey Courts (2010), Annual Report 2009-10, retrieved on April 5, 2012 on: http://www.judiciary.state.nj.us/pressrel/2010/annual%20report%202010.pdf The Urban Institute, Are Drug Courts Solution to the Drug Problem? April 5, 2005, retrieved on April 5, 2012 on http://www.urban.org/publications/900803.html Read More