VERDICT ON DRUGS COURTS

Scheme Seems To Be Producing Welcome Results

We would expect the Scottish Executive to be upbeat about the early results
of a novel initiative it is supporting with public funds to reduce drug
abuse and drug-related crime.

There is a lot more than political credibility riding on the drug-court
regime being tested in Glasgow. Drug-related crime costs Scotland many
millions of pounds a year and wrecks countless lives, afflicting the
victims as well as the perpetrators who rob and mug to fuel habits that can
eventually kill. The executive has embarked on a bold scheme to stop the
revolving door that leads from addiction to criminality to court to prison
to release and back again to crime and another custodial sentence. In the
process, the convicted addict learns nothing but more bad habits in prison.
The cycle is as wasteful as it is depressingly predictable. It closes out
the notion of rehabilitation. Yet no criminal justice system can be
effective without rehabilitation. The drug courts, being piloted in the
city with the biggest drug problem in Scotland, offer rehabilitation and,
in the process, hope for the person who comes under their jurisdiction, as
well as society generally.

Six months into a two-year trial period in Glasgow, the initial indications
are positive.

The courts, which are also to be rolled out in Fife, employ the drug
testing and treatment orders scheme which has already been tested in both
areas.

These orders, which have already been tested over two years in Glasgow and
Fife, offer convicted offenders the opportunity to go on supervised
treatment programmes as an alternative to imprisonment. In return, they
must undergo frequent drug tests and, if they persistently fail, prison is
the likely outcome.

According to the executive, research carried out at Stirling University
shows that, after six months on a drug testing and treatment order, an
offender's drug habit is only 10% of what it had been beforehand. There is
also a huge drop in drug-related crime (by between 88% and 90% of the
previous total) because the offender does not have the same habit to satisfy.

These are promising developments. The regime being tested in Glasgow and
soon to start in Fife might offer even greater prospects of success because
the orders are being imposed and supervised by specialist, discrete courts
dealing with drugs.

The new courts have imposed almost twice as many orders as were laid down
under the previous pilot.

If the rehabilitation rate among offenders is as high as the Stirling
research suggests, and can be delivered consistently, the drug courts
should have great potential to help addicts out of their addiction and into
leading constructive, purposeful lives.

That would clearly benefit them, but it would be a gain for society, too,
because the cost of drug-related crime would be slashed.

Drug courts still have to prove themselves in the long run, but the early
signs are good.