The Dade County Drug Court processes defendants charged with third-degree felony drug possession. The court thus targets drug abusers who have not yet progressed to serious criminal involvement. The court operates with informal, relatively nonadversarial procedures, as the judge, prosecutor, and defense attorney cooperate to ensure that the defendant, upon conviction, receives appropriate treatment rather than punitive incarceration. Priority is given to defendants' treatment progress, such that courtroom personnel operate more as a therapeutic team than as adversaries in a criminal proceeding. The judge regularly reviews offenders' treatment progress and performance. All offenders are referred to the Diversion and Treatment Program, which is an outpatient program with centers in four locations in the county. The program requires 1 year of treatment, during which offenders proceed from detoxification, to counseling, to educational/vocational assessment and training, to graduation. Evaluation data focused on the following areas: the impact of the Drug Court on criminal case processing and the comparison of the case outcomes of Drug Court defendants with the outcomes of defendants charged with offenses of similar severity both prior to the inception of Drug Court and contemporaneous to the processing of Drug Court defendants. Other evaluation data pertained to the performance of Drug Court defendants in the treatment program and the public safety implications of the Drug Court program compared to other categories of county felony defendants. Compared to other felony drug and nondrug defendants processed contemporaneously, significantly fewer Drug Court defendants received sentences of incarceration for terms of more than 1 year. Drug Court defendants also had lower rates of reoffending (rearrests). They also averaged two to three times longer to first rearrest than all comparison group defendants. Lessons drawn from the study are outlined. The study recommends a national conference of officials from jurisdictions with programs similar to the Drug Court. 9 figures and 17 references
Assessing the Impact of Dade County's Felony Drug Court: Executive Summary
NCJ Number
147999
Date Published
1993
Length
54 pages
Annotation
This executive summary describes the operations of Dade County's Drug Court, which emphasizes treatment for drug offenders rather than mandatory minimum periods of incarceration, and reports on evaluation findings and recommendations.
Abstract
Date Published: January 1, 1993