Drug courts in the United States

The first drug court in the United States took shape in Miami-Dade County, Florida, in 1989, as a response to the growing crack-cocaine problem plaguing the city. All 50 states now have working drug courts, with a total of more than 2,400 courts. About 120,000 people treated annually in drug courts, though an estimated 1.5 million eligible people are currently before the courts.

The first drug court, in Miami-Dade County, was designed by Chief Judge Gerald Wetherington, Judge Herbert Klein, then State Attorney Janet Reno, and public defender Bennett Brummer for nonviolent offenders to receive treatment. This model of court system quickly became a popular method for dealing with an ever increasing number of drug offenders. Between 1984 and 1999, the number of defendants charged with a drug offense in the federal courts increased 3% annually, from 11,854 to 29,306. By 1999 there were 472 drug courts in the nation and by 2005 that number had increased to 1262 with another 575 drug courts in the planning stages;

Drug courts operate under a model that combines intensive judicial supervision, mandatory drug testing, escalating sanctions and treatment to help substance abusing offenders break the cycle of addiction and the crime that accompanies it. In 1997 the National Association of Drug Court Professionals published Defining Drug Courts: The Key Components designed to provide courts with a model which can be adapted to fit the specific needs of the community.

Some studies, largely those produced by drug court professional associations, show that recidivism rates for drug court clients are lower than those of standard dockets. The average recidivism rate for those who complete drug court is between 4% and 29%, in contrast to 48% for those who do not participate in a drug court program. A 2003 recidivism report by the Urban Institute and Caliber Associates called "Recidivism Rates For Drug Court Graduates: National Based Estimates", representative of over 17,000 annual drug court graduates nationwide, found that recidivism rates for Drug Court participants one year after graduation is a mere 16.5% and only 27.5% after two years. In a nationally representative sample of more than 2,000 graduates from 95 different drug courts, the average re-arrest rate was only about 16% in the first year after leaving the program and 27% after the second year. This compares highly favorably to typical recidivism rates on conventional probation, in which roughly 46% of offenders commit a new offense and over 60% commit a probation violation. A recent study of nine courts in California found that re-arrest rates over a four-year period were 29% for drug court participants (and only 17% for drug court graduates) as compared to 41% for similar drug offenders who did not participate in drug court. Another study of four adult drug courts in Suffolk County, Massachusetts, found that drug court participants were 13% less likely to be re-arrested, 34% less likely to be re-convicted and 24% less likely to be re-incarcerated than probationers who had been carefully matched to the drug court participants using "propensity score" analyses.

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