What is a successful outcome?

29th September 2009

The recent statement by the Secretary General of the Department of Justice to the effect that he favoured the winding up of the Drug Treatment Court Programme is disappointing, and in my view short-sighted.

Sean Aylward, speaking at the public accounts committee, said that the take-up and completion rates of the court were lower than had been anticipated, but surely the fact that the current system is not performing as well as we might hope is hardly an argument for giving up on an innovative idea.

Drug courts, through which appropriate offenders with addiction problems are referred to treatment rather than prison, have worked very well in many countries, particularly in the United States where they are now a central part of the justice system. To really measure the value of this type of intervention, we need to broaden our understanding of what we mean by successful outcomes. If we expect it to lead to people becoming drug free in a short period of time then that is a failure to understand the nature of addiction and the high relapse rates involved. The previous evaluations of the drug courts here have shown that they have a great deal of potential if the proper supports are in place.

If Mr. Aylward wishes to use relapse as the benchmark of success or failure for offenders with addiction problems, then imprisonment would clearly be the most unsuccessful response. All our experience says that prison is an expensive way of making a difficult problem worse. Alternatives to prisons are essential, particularly where people's offending is linked to a drug addiction. While there may be a temptation to cut smaller programmes in the current climate, it would be a terrible shame if one of the more promising alternatives to imprisonment was closed off without really trying to make it work.