The first drug court was established in Miami-Dade, Florida in 1989. Drug courts were established because of the “revolving door of drug use” and increasing recidivism rates. Drug courts have the ability to change a person’s life for the better by teaching them how to beat their addictions while providing the proper treatments for each offender. As a result, of the ongoing development of drug courts it is unfair to expect the system to be indefectible. Still, there are many benefits in participating in the drug court system. The purpose of this paper is to inform the reader about the success, goals, and failures of the the Maricopa County Drug court, Baltimore City Drug Court, and the King County Drug Diversion court systems.
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Between March 1998 and May 2003 there was a total of 421 offenders that were assigned to this court system. Out of the 421 offenders 270 of the offenders have graduated from the programs which shows that Maricopa county has the potential to be a very successful program. The maricopa drug treatment program offers many treatment opportunities to its offenders. As stated in the Evaluation of DUI court in Maricopa county arizona, offenders that are apart of the drug program spend about 47 hours in treatment. Participants also spend 5 hours doing community service as well as two hours in substance abuse education classes. These are various examples of how the Maricopa County drug court is a successful program. Another reason the Maricopa county treatment program is successful because they help reduce recidivism rates. Just as The National Highway Safety Administration mentions, Maricopa county was effective in reducing the recidivism of felony dui offenders. It is also mentioned that the Maricopa county treatment program had lower recidivism rates than standard probation programs. As previously stated there will be some error in the development of the court system. One of the failures of the program is that there is not a 100% graduation rate. Since there is not a 100% graduation rate it is safe to say that the Maricopa county program still has some improvements needed to allow the program to reach its full