Drug Courts: A Program to Reinvent Justice for Addicts
For the past several decades, drug use has had an overwhelming effect upon the American justice system, with drug and drug-related crime being the most common offense in almost every community (Drug Strategies, 1996). eyond the troubling ability of these problems to fill prisons to capacity, the traditional judicial system seemed to have no deterrent effect on these crimes (Drug and Crime Facts, 1994). A disturbing "revolving door" pattern had emerged, with drug offenders moving through the system in a predictable pattern of arrest, prosecution, conviction, incarceration, and release. In a few weeks, sometimes only a few days, the same person was back in the system again, arrested for drug possession or a drug-related crime (National Association of Drug Court Professionals [NADCP], 1997). A particularly difficult problem faced by the system was the growing use of crack cocaine in the 1980s (Miller…...
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Bibliography
Bean, Philip. (1996, October). "America's Drug Courts: A New Development in Criminal Justice." Criminal Law Review. 720-740.
A scholarly review of the American drug court by a British attorney.
Green County Drug Court
The Green County court system has finally decided to implement a "drug court" to bring about some much-needed changes in the current system. The county has authorized a new judge and is debating the merits whether that individual should be elected or appointed. The court is also considering the questions of whether it should operate on a due process model or a crime control model and whether juveniles should be adjudicated.
Green County elects its judges, but in this instance it is recommended that the drug court judge be appointed. The primary reason is expedience. Political campaigns, in addition to being costly in terms of money, are costly in terms of time. Green County needs to address its drug problem immediately and can do so by appointing a judge.
Election campaigns can also take the focus away from an issue. The recent brouhaha over President Obama's birth certificate is…...
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Reference
Gruenewald, P.J., Johnson, K., Shamblem, S.R., Ogilvie, K.A., and Collins, D. (2009).
Reducing adolescent use of harmful legal products: Intermediate effects of a community prevention intervention. Substance Use & Misuse 44(14), pp. 2080-2098.
The later stages focuses on dealing with the problems related to the drug use withdrawal like the withdrawal syndromes, the tendency to relapse. The later stages also focus on restoring the self dignity and also impacting the participant with the prerequisites to self-manage the drug abuse issue once the probation and treatment duration ends (Tara, 2007).
The drug courts are also said to be significant to the economy of the U.S. The drug courts save the taxpayer money for each participant in the treatment as compared to the same individual or one with a similar problem but going through the criminal court system. This is realized by the reduced recidivism cases among the graduates from the treatment facilities recommended by the drug court systems (Daniel, 2003).
In general, the drug use is very addictive and a problem that dealing with it in the U.S. society is very difficult. This is why the…...
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References
Amanda B.C., & Michael R., (2005). The State of Drug Court Research. Retrieved may 30, 2010
from www.courtinnovation.org/_.../state%20of%20dc%20research.pdf
Belenko, S. (2001). Research on drug courts: A critical review 2001 update. National Drug Court
Institute Review, 4, 1 -- 60 www.20.drugpolicy.org/docUploads/2001drugcourts.pdf
Court Service Management
How does a court system cope with a changing of the guard when a new administration is elected and key executives and managers are replaced, and/or when policy changes direction as a new political party assumes power?
The court deals with transitions of power by maintaining the established traditions and principles from the Constitution. This is used to ensure that case precedent is respected and to provide stability for the entire political system. As the basic guarantees of the Constitution will not change and cannot be adjusted based upon a new party coming to power. In this case, the structure and attitudes will remain the same. This is from the institution and its practices remaining in place. egardless of what is happening with transitions in power. (Koopmans, 2003) (Neubauer, 2012) (Oakley, 2009)
However, the courts will be impacted by these changes to a certain extent. This will occur on the…...
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References
Glannon, J. (2008). Civil Procedures. Frederick, MD: Kluwer Law.
Howard, J. (1999). The Shifting Wind. Albany, NY: SUNY Press.
Koopmans, T. (2003). Courts and Political Institutions. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley.
Lane, S. (2012). Highway 420. Staten Island, NY: Sandi Lane.
Economists are concerned with the impact that the sale of drugs has on both individual and economic freedoms and frame their argument from this perspective. Others argue that reliance on the criminal justice system has not produced significant results and that it is time to reframe the argument to focus on the education, prevention, and treatment of drugs.
From the economic perspective, there are apparent differences between government prohibition and legalization of drugs. It has been estimated that total government expenditures devoted to the enforcement of drug laws is well in excess of $26 billion. These figures are also significant in state and local law enforcement agencies with drug related incidents making up one fifth of the total investigative resources and drug enforcement activities. Approximately 25% of the total prison population, municipal, state and federal, is made up of drug law violators. In fact, ten percent of all arrests are…...
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References
Millhorn, M., Monoghan, M., Montero, D., Reyes, M., Roman, T., Tollasken, R., & Walls, B. (2009). North Americans' attitudes toward illegal drugs. Journal of Human Behavior in the Social Environment, 19(2), 125-141.
Miron, J.A. (2001). The economics of drug prohibition and drug legalization. Social Research, 68(3), 835-855.
National Institute on Drug Abuse (1998). The economic cost of alcohol and drug abuse in the United States. National Institute of Health Publication, 98-4327.
Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. (2009, April). National household survey on drug abuse main findings, 1998.
One example of the kind of policy change that is being suggested by some in the particular war on Meth is the reduction of the ability of meth makers, especially large scale makers to realize the supplies of a small number of raw materials used to make the drug pseudoephedrine is quaaludes, as this drug was successfully removed from the radar screen by the banning of the chemicals used to make it, and this may be an option for all synthetic drugs.
Reurer 170)
orks Cited
Boulard, Garry. "The Meth Menace: Battling the Fast-Paced Spread of Methamphetamine May Mean Attacking It from Several Fronts." State Legislatures May 2005: 14.
Boyum, David, and Mark A.R. Kleiman. "Breaking the Drug-Crime Link." Public Interest Summer 2003: 19.
Organized Crime." The Columbia Encyclopedia. 6th ed. 2004.
Hanson, Gayle M.B. "Drug Crime Doesn't Pay, or Does It?." Insight on the News 19 June 1995: 16.
Meth's a Global Problem." The Register-Guard…...
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Works Cited
Boulard, Garry. "The Meth Menace: Battling the Fast-Paced Spread of Methamphetamine May Mean Attacking It from Several Fronts." State Legislatures May 2005: 14.
Boyum, David, and Mark A.R. Kleiman. "Breaking the Drug-Crime Link." Public Interest Summer 2003: 19.
Organized Crime." The Columbia Encyclopedia. 6th ed. 2004.
Hanson, Gayle M.B. "Drug Crime Doesn't Pay, or Does It?." Insight on the News 19 June 1995: 16.
14). Soon, Congress passed the Marijuana Tax Act, which was signed into law in 1937. Like the Harrison Act, the Marijuana Tax Act placed marijuana into the same category as the cocaine and opium drugs. It was now illegal to import marijuana into the United States (McWilliams, 1991). However, this law was ineffective in curbing marijuana use (Brecher, 1986, p. 14).
By the early 1940s narcotic addiction had significantly reduced in the United States (Harrison, Backenheimer and Inciardi, 1999). However, this was not the result of legislative initiatives. Instead, it was because World War II was cutting off the "supplies of opium from Asia and interrupt the trafficking routes from Europe" (Inciardi, 1992, p. 24).
Several other legislative efforts in the supply reduction department served to establish more severe penalties for violations of drug laws, and tighten controls and restrictions over legally manufactured narcotic drugs (Harrison, Backenheimer and Inciardi, 1999). The…...
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References
1999). Recreational Drug Information. History of Drug Use U.S. Retrieved from the Internet at www.a1b2c3.com/drugs/.
Brecher, E. (1986). Drug Laws and Drug Law Enforcement: A Review and Evaluation Based on 111 Years of Experience,' Drugs and Society 1:1.
Drucker, Ernest. (1999). Harm Reduction: A Public Health Strategy. Current Issues in Public Health, 1: pp. 64-70.
"As a case in point we may take the known fact of the prevalence of reefer and dope addiction in Negro areas. This is essentially explained in terms of poverty, slum living, and broken families, yet it would be easy to show the lack of drug addiction among other ethnic groups where the same conditions apply." Inciardi 248()
Socio-economic effects
Legalizing drugs has been deemed to have many socio-economic effects. A study that was conducted by Jeffrey a. Miron, who was a Harvard economist estimated that by legalizing drugs, this would inject about $76.8 billion in to the U.S. every year. 44.1 billion dollars would come from savings made from the law enforcement measures and 32.7 billion would be from tax revenue. This revenue can be thought to be broken down as follows: 6.7 billion dollars from marijuana, 22.5 billion from heroin and cocaine and the rest from the other minority drugs…...
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References
Blumenson, Eric, and Eva S. Nilsen. How to Construct an Underclass, or How the War on Drugs Became a War on Education. Massachusetts: Drug Policy Forum of Massachusetts, 2002. Print.
Campos, Isaac. "Degeneration and the Origins of Mexico's War on Drugs." Mexican Studies/Estudios Mexicanos 26.2 (2010): 379-408. Print.
All too often, the human stories of how and why certain people get involved in such rings are avoided. Tobon looked past this, and has become a valuable person to the Colombian community. The police even call him now, when they find the body of a mule. One way in which to deprive criminals of their unsuspecting dupes is by eliminating backbreaking poverty, by giving individuals a chance to pull themselves up by the bootstraps without having to resort to illegal measures. In the meantime, mules are a different sort of criminal than the ringleaders of these drug trafficking organizations, and so therefore ought to be tried in a court of law differently.
1. PBS (2009). The Border
Accompanying website Last accessed March 2010: http://www.pbs.org/kpbs/theborder/
2. -. Drug Trafficking in the United States DEA Fact Sheet.
Last accessed April 2010: http://www.justice.gov/dea/pubs/state_factsheets.html
3. Altschuler, David & Brounstein, Paul. (1992) Patterns of Drug Use and Drug…...
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6. Sesin, Carmen. (2004, May 25). Caring for 'drug mules' who perish on the job. MSNBC.
The benefits of ending the cycle of drug and alcohol abuse far outweigh the pain and hard work involved. Living a clean and sober lifestyle allows people to make their own decisions, not decisions based on their physical need for drugs or alcohol. They will regain their self-respect, and find happiness in the things they were neglecting during their use and abuse. Finally, their body will be free of the physical tolls of alcohol and drugs.
For someone like Jared, working to end his alcohol abuse will improve his life in many ways. First, working toward change will show his wife, his mother, and the rest of the people who love him that he does not want to hurt them and wants to change. While other problems may exist in Jared's marriage and life, he owes it to himself and those that he loves to try. He might spend more…...
Federal Mandatory Minimum Drug Sentences and Their Impact on Recidivism
There is much controversy regarding mandatory sentencing and its impact on the American society throughout recent times. In many ways, prisons are used as a means to control crime, to protect society from it, with criminals being deterred from continuing to commit illegalities as a direct result of the time they spend behind bars. Mandatory minimums were generally introduced with the purpose of preventing future recidivism. The authorities considered that the uncomfortable nature of prison life and the social status associated with being in prison were enough to persuade criminals to refrain from ever expressing interest in illegalities once they were set free. Other schools of thought appear to think just the opposite as some believe that prison time actually has a negative impact on convicts, while others believe that criminals experience little to no change consequent to staying in prison.
Mandatory…...
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Works cited:
Book:
Goldberg, Raymond, "Drugs Across the Spectrum, 7th ed.," (Cengage Learning, 5 Oct 2012)
Kitwana, Bakari, "The Hip-Hop Generation: Young Blacks and the Crisis in African-American Culture," (Basic Civitas Books, 2008)
Lyman, Michael D., "Drugs in Society: Causes, Concepts, and Control," (Newnes, 25 Sep 2013)
Intervening With Juvenile Drug Crimes
Researchers are now focused on developing and evaluating programs designed to break the drug-crime cycle that is common in juvenile delinquents. This paper will summarize existing literature about programs designed to prevent the juvenile drug-crime cycle and, based on that literature, identify interventions that offer the best chances for success. This paper will also provide guidelines and recommendations for developing a comprehensive juvenile justice system that can best address the needs of juvenile offenders involved with drug crimes.
This thesis is expected to make a contribution to the selection of successful interventions and the development of collaborative partnerships in the juvenile justice system, drug treatment programs, and other agencies as they attempt to break the cycle of drugs and crime afflicting U.S. juveniles.
Introduction
With the prevalence of drug crimes among juveniles and the complexity involved in their treatment, which must involve both the child and his living environment,…...
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Bibliography
Abuse and Dependence. Child and Adolescent Psychiatric Clinics of North America 5 (1): 201-211.
Allison, M., and Hubbard, R.L. (1985). Drug abuse treatment process: A review of the literature. International Journal of the Addictions 20:13211345.
Anglin, M.D., and Hser, Y. (1990). Treatment of drug abuse. In Drugs and Crime, vol. 13, edited by M. Tonry and J.Q. Wilson. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
Ball, J.C., Rosen, J.A., Flueck, J.A., and Nurco, D.N. (1981). The criminality of heroin addicts: When addicted and when off opiates. In The Drugs-Crime Connection, edited by J.A. Inciardi. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, Inc.
Juvenile drug courts are among the most recent innovations in the treatment of substance-involved adolescents in the justice system. Their emergence in the 1990s was driven by the rising rates of substance abuse among adolescents -- a 2000 report by the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, for instance, showed that substance usage among high school students had risen substantially in the 1990s, with almost 9.5% being cocaine users; a third being binge drinkers, and 14.6% being inhalant users (Office of Justice Programs, 2003). In line with these statistics, the rate of juvenile crime rose by a massive 145% during this period compared to the rate reported in the last decade (Office of Justice Programs, 2003). Juvenile drug courts were established after it became apparent that the traditional juvenile court system did not deal effectively with substance abuse, mental illness and other related problems owing to its lack of specialization…...
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References
Chassin, L. (2008). Juvenile Justice and Substance Use. The Future of Children, 18(2), 165-183.
United States District Court for the District of South Carolina. (2015). BRIDGE Program: Mission Statement and Policies. United States District Court for the District of South Carolina. Retrieved August 10, 2015 from http://www.scp.uscourts.gov/Downloads/BRIDGEProgramMissionPolicies.pdf
According to these authors, the fatal tragedy could easily have been avoided by taking more time for more focused and carefully planned clinical trials. According to this view, it was unethical to test Tysabri in the way it has been done, and furthermore irresponsible to enter it into the market before all side-effects were ascertained.
3. Interested parties: The interested parties in this case include Walter Smith, Anita's widower, as well as Cambridge biotechnology and Elan Corp. From Smith's point-of-view, the companies are at fault for causing harm to his wife, and potential harm to many others using the drug. His current assertions regarding the reentry of the drug into the market appear to be well thought out and mature, focusing on the future benefit of patients rather than on his own need for revenge.
From the point-of-view of the companies, the drug is developed to help those suffering from multiple…...
Drug Trade
The international drug trade affects countless numbers of people personally, whether due to addiction or to organized crime-related death, or to imprisonment. How ever, the drug trade can also be placed in a broader social, political, and economic context. The international drug trade is a thriving black market industry. Its commodities are not exchanged on the New York Stock Exchange but in shady deals on darkened shipping docks. The international drug trade is, however, a lucrative industry, and its participants reap definite financial benefits.
The drug trade impacts the legitimate global economy by diverting funds towards policing, court costs, and other punitive procedures. Border patrols and other preventative measures also cost taxpayer money that could be diverted elsewhere.
Moreover, the thriving drug industry means that impoverished people are willing to risk the concurrent dangers associated with the trade in order to reap higher wages. For example, Afghani farmers make better…...
1. Evaluating the Effectiveness of Restorative Justice Practices
Explore the implementation and outcomes of restorative justice programs in reducing recidivism, fostering victim-offender reconciliation, and promoting community healing.
2. The Impact of Implicit Bias on Sentencing Disparities
Investigate the role of unconscious biases in sentencing decisions, examining the extent to which race, gender, or other factors influence the severity of punishments.
3. The Role of Community Policing in Reducing Crime and Building Trust
Analyze the effectiveness of community policing strategies in fostering trust between law enforcement and the communities they serve, and its impact on crime prevention and community well-being.
4. The Use of....
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