Some people who were convicted for selling drugs were supporting their drugs habits. She suggested they would be better suited in a treatment facility. I concur, as a substance abuse counselor, I encountered many drug dealing addicts. It’s important for them to gain sobriety and develop positive coping skills. They cannot accomplished this by sitting in jail because many jails are ill-equipped for treatment.
Furthermore, the decision underscores the crucial need for a legal process that prioritizes rehabilitation and treatment for individuals struggling with substance abuse and mental health issues, rather than relying solely on punitive measures. In essence, this ruling promotes a fairer justice system that respects constitutional rights and ensures that the imposition of criminal liability aligns with the presence of intent and voluntary
The prisoners that have struggled with drugs are place in a pre-released program to prepare them for their release. I think the justice system hands are tied a little bit to maintain the prisons and community well
In a landmark Supreme Court case involving procedural due process safeguards, the court held that certain requirements must be met when an individual parole is revoked. Based on this case, the court found that due process requirements must be invoked in three stages; the defendant’s deferred sentence, completion of certain terms of probations and whether the defendant successful completes the probation terms or not (Oram & Gleckker, 2006). Since the Supreme Court hasn’t addressed the issue of due process clause under a drug treatment court, a few states have addressed the issue using the landmark Morrissey Supreme Court case to apply whether due process requirements is applicable to proceedings (Oram & Gleckker, 2006). Applying due process
In The New Jim Crow, civil rights lawyer Michelle Alexander makes the case that the system of Jim Crow never died. It just took a new form in the shape of mass incarceration. Today, African American men are labelled “criminals” and stripped of their freedom, their voting rights, and their access to government programs. Alexander’s thesis is that we are currently living in a new Jim Crow era; the systemic oppression of slavery and segregation never actually went away, Alexander argues, but merely changed form.
The creation of drug courts has had many positive effects on millions of lives and has helped with keeping certain familiar faces out of court. Though due to are countries fiscal crisis many programs have been cut or expansion has ceased. The criminal justice systems cost roughly 70 billion annual on the corrections system which is because of over reliance on incarceration. Instead of spending so much to increate people the courts could be sending them to reform programs that end
Unfortunately the process failed in the case of Dude Freeman and he reoffended and was sent back to the facility to be sentenced for the eighth time. “While dude waited again for the terms of his punishment to be determined, he was thrust into this institutional confusion, and, to some extent at least, it was through the drug game that he imagined his way out. And of course, he was not alone.” (Bergmann, 2008:156) The system does not always work because the judicial system hopes that when the individuals are released back into the general population that they have learned their lesson through their experiences in the juvenile detention facility.
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.
Drug Courts or Drug Treatment Courts have grown in popularity in addressing higher vol-umes of drug-related offenses which have burdened to criminal justice courts and correction facilities. The high volume of cases within the courts was caused by policy changes in response to the “war on crime” which associated high rates of violent crime to drug use (Brown, 1997). These policies were aggressive punitive sanctions for drug users, which had disproportionate impacts on minority communities and contributed to prison overcrowding (Ibid.). In addition, these harsh sentencing guidelines were found to be ineffective in reducing drug crime rates in most jurisdictions (Ibid.).
Drug courts focus on dealing with substance abuse or cases involving alcohol (Patchin & Keveles, 2004). This method desires to effectively battle the drug and alcohol problem by specifying the type of treatment. The drug courts can center their attention on the addressed drug and alcohol problem faster than traditional courts, while providing offenders with the appropriate method of rehabilitation or treatment. Drug courts: require for offenders to participate in random drug tests, can reward or discipline the offender based on their progress or failure to not to drugs, are available to selected participants, and can help offenders avoid a guilty charge in court if they are successful in their participation in the programs. A useful example regarding drug courts involve individuals who are normal substance abusers, but the traditional courts have found that their methods have not helped the offenders stay out of jail.
The Drug Treatment Alternative-to-Prison Program is another attempt to provide better treatment for people who are convicted. The study showed that drug offenders who underwent a treatment program outside of prison had a 26 percent less rate of re-arrest after two years than a control group that was sent to prison (Justice Policy Institute, 2010). Rehabilitative programs like the Second Chance Act and the Drug Treatment Alternative-to-Prison Program has shown to growth and positive
In the 1970s the United States entered the era known as mass incarceration, the byproduct of the drug war. The War on Drugs changed how society handled drug dependency, diverting the problem from public health to criminal justice. Since the Nixon administration, the political stance on being tough on crime has resulted in various laws and policing practices that heavily criminalized drugs to point in which the prison population in the United States increased from 300,000 people in 1972 to 2.3 million today (Barish, DuVernay, Averick & DuVernay, 2016). The epidemic of mass incarceration corresponds to a variety of public health issues such as mental illness, increased violence within society, increased incidence of addictions, and increased incidence of chronic illnesses (Drucker, 2013).
Why we should incarcerate drug users Currently one of the less heated but still talked about debates is the issue of what we should do with those who have been caught using illegal substances. Some people say that we should be giving them rehab, and some say that they deserve to be in their. Both sides have their points, but the evidence points towards incarceration being a better option. The reason our judicial system incarcerates drug abusers are because enforcement will discourage drug use, it will keep them away from innocent people, and it will punish the addicts so they know not to do it again.
Specialized Courts Specialized courts are commonly known as the problem-solving courts that promote positive reinforcement, support behavior modification, decrease victimization, and reduce recidivism. Examples of specialized courts include drug court and mental health courts. A community might benefit from establishing a specialized court such as a drug court because it follows a comprehensive model that concentrates on reducing criminal actions through treatment and rehabilitation services with the focus being on substance abuse addiction and identifying the cause without jeopardizing public safety and due process (Specialized Courts, 2013).
This leads to the question of whether the justice system is doing an adequate job of dealing with drug addiction. Instead of incarcerating people for drug abuse, an alternative is treating victims by rehab and treatment. This paper will exam why treatment is the superior option for
