Drug courts combine treatment with incentives and sanctions. Sanctions can and do include mandatory, as well as, random drug testing of the offender. Drug courts are a proven tool for improving public health as well as public safety. They provide an innovative way for collaboration between the judiciary, prosecutors, law enforcement and other community corrections agencies, drug treatment providers and community support groups. The effectiveness of these courts is well documented since they first started operating in the United States 20 years ago. In a time of limited resources for local and state budgets, drug courts offer a cost effective way to increase the chances for the nonviolent offender to achieve sustained recovery, thereby reducing recidivism for the offender. The drug court movement began in the 1980s as a response to the growing number of drug cases brought before the court. Law enforcement and corrections agencies policies alone were not having the effect on the drug trade that proponents of the war on drugs had hoped for. An administrative order from the chief judge of Florida’s Eleventh Circuit in 1989 implemented the first drug court in the United States. (Engen, & Steen (2000). The responsibility of the prosecuting attorney is to protect the public’s safety by ensuring that each candidate is appropriate for the program and complies with all drug court requirements. The responsibility of the defense counsel is to protect the participant’s due process rights while encouraging full participation. Both the prosecuting attorney and the defense counsel play important roles in the court’s coordinated strategy for responding to noncompliance. An accurate drug testing program is the most objective and efficient way to establish a framework for accountability and to gauge each offender participant’s progress. Drug testing results are objective measures of treatment effectiveness, as well as a source of important information for periodic review of treatment progress. Drug testing is central to the drug court’s monitoring of participant compliance. It is both objective and cost-effective. It gives the participant immediate information about his or her own progress, making the participant active and involved in the treatment process rather than a passive recipient of services. (Belenko (2000). In 20 years since the first Drug Court was founded, there has been more research published on the effects of drug courts than on any other criminal justice program. The conclusion from the research is that drug courts work better than jail or prison. Better than probation and treatment alone. Drug Courts significantly reduce drug use and crime and are more cost-effective than any other criminal justice strategy. Nationwide, 75% of Drug Court graduates remain arrest-free at least two years after leaving the program. (DeMatteo, Filone, & LaDuke (2011). Drug courts reduce recidivism, costs of housing nonviolent drug offenders in prisons, and affect other positive outcomes. The amount of a court’s impact depends on how well the needs of offenders and staff are balanced with the drug court’s components and policies. A strong partnership with local law enforcement is a critical component of a successful drug court. Law enforcement officers provide a unique perspective and benefit to drug court judges and staff. Law enforcement can improve referrals to the court and extend the connection of the drug court team into the community for further information gathering and monitoring of offenders. Law enforcement personnel play important roles not only in the day to day operations of the drug court, but also in showing other community leaders the public safety effect of these courts. There is an appeal for drug courts in many sectors of the United States. Drug courts lead to more efficient supervision of offenders living in the community, more credibility is given to law enforcement arrests of drug offenders, which are taken more seriously by court systems, greater accountability is given to the offender with complying with their conditions of release and probation, greater coordination and accountability of public services provided, including reducing duplication of services and costs to the taxpayer, and more efficiency for the court system by removing cases that places significant resource demands for processing, both initially as well as with probation violations and new offenses that otherwise would occur. Drug courts provide a powerful impact because of the human element. Close to 100,000 drug dependent offenders have entered drug court programs since drug courts were implemented and over 70% are either still enrolled or have graduated, more than double the rate of traditional treatment program retention rates. Drug court participants reflect all segments of the community, from people who are parents of minor children, to veterans. In the past men were the highest sector of offenders compared to women, although the rate of female participants is rising. Most drug court participants have been using drugs for many, many years, and many are users of more than one type of drug. Most have never been exposed to treatment previously, although a large majority of men and women have already served jail or prison time for drug related offenses. (Belenko, S. (2000). Unlike traditional treatment programs, becoming clean and sober is only the first step toward drug court graduation. Almost all drug courts require participants, after they have become clean and sober, to obtain a GED, maintain employment, be current in all financial obligations, including drug court fees and child support payments, if applicable, and to have a sponsor in the community. Many programs also require participants to perform community service hours to give back to the community that is supporting them through the drug court program. Some drug courts require an offender about to graduate from the program to prepare a two year life plan for discussion with a sponsor or community board to assure the court that the participant has developed the life tools to lead a drug free and crime free life. (Belenko, S. (2000). The goals of drug courts, reduction in recidivism and drug usage, are being achieved. Recidivism rates have been substantially reduced for graduates and, to a lesser degree, for those participants who do not graduate. Drug usage rates for offenders while they are participating in the drug court are measured by frequent, random urinalyses, which is required of all participants in the program, are also substantially reduced dramatically below that for nondrug court offenders. (Marlowe (2006). Recognizing that substance addiction is a chronic and recurring disorder, the drug court program maintains continuous supervision over the recovery process of each participant, through frequent court status hearings, urinalysis, and reports from the treatment providers to the supervising judge. Drug usage or failures to comply with other conditions of the drug court program are detected and responded to promptly. Immediate responses ranging from enhanced treatment services, more frequent urinalysis, imposition of community service requirements, and shock incarceration are some of the options drug court judges use to respond to program noncompliance. In appropriate situations, particularly where public safety is at issue or participants willfully fail to comply with program conditions, the offenders are terminated from the drug court program and are referred for traditional adjudication, where standard penalties are applied. Data reported by the oldest drug courts indicate that drug use is being reduced for most participants, not just drug court graduates.( Nolan (2002). The average cost for the treatment of an offender in a drug court program ranges between $1,200 and $3,000 per participant, depending upon the range of services provided. Savings in jail bed days have been estimated to be at least $5,000 per offender which does not add in the value of the capability to incarcerate the more serious offenders, which many jurisdictions are also deriving from these programs. Drug court programs have also reduced police overtime and witness costs, as well as grand jury expenses for those jurisdictions with an indictment process, that would be required if these cases proceeded in the traditional manner. Drug court programs also have a substantial percentage of participants who came into the program unemployed and on public assistance. While participating in the drug court program, they have become employed and are now self-supporting. In addition, many participants who are employed at the time of program entry are able to maintain their employment, despite their arrest. (Egbert, Church II, & Byrnes (2006). Many of the drug court participants are parents of minor children. Many of these parents have lost custody or are in danger of losing custody of their children because of their drug use. Drug court participation has resulted in many of these parents retaining or regaining custody upon completing the drug court program. Drug free babies have been born to female drug court participants while enrolled in drug court programs, thus alleviating the substantial medical and social services costs required to care for a drug addicted infant, let alone the societal impact that results. Almost all drug courts provide family counseling and at least half provide aid with housing and food and clothing. Most also provide day care while participants attend treatment. (DeMatteo, Filone & LaDuke (2011). In addition to cost savings, the justice system, due to the drug court programs, are enabling their agencies to more efficiently allocate criminal justice resources. Staff and services, which have been consumed by the less serious but time consuming drug cases can now be targeted for drug court assignment. The justice system is better able to allocate their resources to the more serious cases and to those offenders who present greater risks to community safety. Case preparation and court appearance time freed up by drug court programs is equivalent to one or more attorney positions. The caseloads assumed by the drug court judges have also permitted docket time of other judges to be freed up and made available for other criminal matters as well as civil cases which, in many jurisdictions, have been relegated to secondary priority because of the drug caseload. In jurisdictions where jail space has been freed up, this space is now being used to house more serious offenders or to assure that they serve their full sentences, as well as eliminating overcrowding in many prisons. (Engen, & Steen (2000). Illicit drugs are used in jails and prisons despite their highly structured, controlled environments, but even enforced abstinence can mislead criminal justice professionals as well as addicted persons to underestimate the vulnerability to relapse once the offender is released from prison. On release from prison or jail, addicted persons will experience challenges to their sobriety through multiple stressors that increase their risk of relapsing to drug use. These include the stigma associated with being labeled an ex-offender, the need for housing and legitimate employment, stresses in re-unifying with family, and the requirements for criminal justice supervision. (Engen, & Steen (2000). Punishment alone is a futile and ineffective response to drug abuse, failing as a public safety intervention for offenders whose criminal behavior is directly related to drug use. Addiction is a chronic brain disease with a strong genetic component that in most instances requires treatment. The increase in the number of drug-abusing offenders highlights the urgency to institute drug court treatments for populations involved in the criminal justice system. It also provides an opportunity to intervene for individuals who would otherwise not seek treatment. (Nolan (2002).

The challenge of delivering treatment in a criminal setting requires the cooperation and coordination of the criminal justice system organized to punish the offender and protect society and the drug abuse treatment systems organized to help the addicted individual. Addressing addiction as a disease does not remove the responsibility of the individual, which is the argument frequently used to resist recognizing and treating addiction as an illness. Rather it highlights the personal responsibility of the addicted person to seek and adhere to drug court treatment and that of society to ensure that such treatment is available and based on scientific evidence. Only a small percentage of those requiring treatment for drug addiction seek help voluntarily. In light of this, the criminal justice system provides a unique opportunity to intervene and disrupt the cycle of drug use and crime in a cost-effective manner through drug courts. (DeMatteo, Filone & LaDuke (2011). The outcomes drug courts are achieving go far beyond the goals of reduced recidivism and drug usage however, the birth of drug free babies to drug court participants, the reunification of hundreds of families as parents regain or are able to retain custody of their children, education and vocational training, as well as job placements for participants. More significantly, many of the judges who have served as the drug court judge have requested an extension of their assignment, and many have taken on the drug court duty in addition to their other docket responsibilities. (Egbert, Church II, & Byrnes (2006).