Drug courts have been in the news a lot recently - increased funding for drug courts is a significant component of the White House's recently released drug policy budget, and the Government Accountability Office just came out with a report saying that people who complete treatment under drug court supervision are less likely to return to drug use or to be arrested for a new crime.

In the Drug Policy Alliance's view, drug courts are a welcome alternative to jail and prison. But drug courts are not without their problems, and it is not clear from the evidence so far that they provide the most effective, or cost-effective, model for offering treatment. The Alliance believes that less coercive treatment options should be available more widely, with drug courts reserved for those who are more seriously addicted or criminally involved.

Good drug court programs merit continued support, but it is important to look critically at the tradeoffs and sacrifices that come from marrying very different systems - treatment and criminal justice. Among the concerns that have been raised regarding drug courts:

-- arbitrary and inconsistent eligibility criteria (prosecutors and judges can "cherry-pick" clients to boost success rates, or simply to limit treatment opportunities)

-- sacrifice of patient confidentiality

-- over-reliance on urine testing to evaluate clients' success or failure

-- heavy reliance on incarceration as a "treatment tool," with jail stays imposed as a sanction for relapse or noncompliance

-- the inappropriate repudiation of narcotic replacement therapies (e.g., methadone) as a treatment option, despite the proven success of such treatment for opioid dependence

-- diversion of funding and treatment slots from voluntary and community-based programs into coerced treatment

-- propagation of the myth that treatment doesn't work unless it is backed by the state's coercive powers.

The Alliance's strategy is to seek to build on what is good about drug courts while correcting their widespread problems, an approach that has met with tremendous success in the form of California's Proposition 36.

That law, now four years old, provides a universal treatment option for all nonviolent drug possession offenders. More than 30,000 nonviolent offenders enter the Prop. 36 program each year. In just its first two years, the program saved the state over $220 million, after treatment costs were paid for, and made it unnecessary for California to build a prison that was slated for construction by 2003.

Meanwhile, California's drug courts have shifted to handling more serious offenders who, due to more serious criminal activity or due to their failure in Prop. 36 treatment, may need the higher levels of supervision and court involvement that drug courts offer.

This story was provided by the Drug Policy Alliance. Visit their website at drugpolicy.org.