In a week when drug trafficking loomed large in the public consciousness and there was renewed discussion about the desirability of countries like Indonesia softening their hardline stance on drugs, it was easy to overlook the reality that such arguments have raged on and off for years. Indeed, since Richard Nixon declared war on drugs in 1971 in a confected fit of moral panic, the significant social and economic costs of drug abuse have been so discussed, dissected and raked over that it might be imagined there was little left to be said. Or rather, that that there was little being said that was useful and attainable as opposed to unrealistic, naïve or fanciful.
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Occasionally, practical, commonsense observations do emerge from the general tumult – as for example when Directions ACT suggested this week that creating a drug court in the Territory might potentially slow the number of drug offenders being sent to the Alexander Maconochie Centre, reduce recidivism rates, and save the government millions of dollars.
Drug courts are an American idea and were first trialled in Florida in the 1980s. Tiring of his courts being consistently clogged with drug cases, a Dade Country chief judge hatched the idea of a separate and distinct drug court to deal with non-violent drug-dependent offenders. There, offenders agreeing to plead guilty could be diverted to treatment programs (with the proviso that they be subject to judicial supervision and random drug tests) and provided with support services to enable them to return to a law-abiding life. The innovation was quickly adopted elsewhere in the States; by 2001, there were 570 drug courts across America. Authorities in Canada, Ireland and Britain followed suit, organising trials and evaluating the results. Australia, frequently slow to grasp the significance of worthwhile overseas legal innovation, did not get around to legislating for the establishment of a drug court until 1998. That was in NSW, and it took a further two years for the court to be formally established. Four other states, Queensland, Victoria, South Australia and Western Australia, now have drug courts, either as pilot projects or in formal operation, separate from local or district courts. Scrutiny and evaluation of the experiment has shown encouraging results.
In 2010, the NSW Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research found in two separate studies of the Youth Drug and Alcohol Court that participants were 17 per cent less likely than a comparison group to be reconvicted of any offence, 30 per cent less likely to be reconvicted of a violent offence and 38 per cent less likely to be reconvicted of a drug offences. Moreover, the bureau found that had the study group been imprisoned instead of being treated, they would have cost NSW taxpayers an additional $36 million.
The clear evidence that drug courts divert offenders away from prison and that they are more effective than jail in reducing re-offending rates has not been so compelling as to move the ACT government, however. Nor are the ACT Bar Association or the ACT Law Society enthusiastic about a drug court. The former believes the resources for a stand-alone court would be better spent on drug rehabilitation providers, while Law Society president Martin Hockridge says he doubts whether it would work in a small jurisdiction like the ACT. It's possible the Barr government agrees with both assessments. In any event, Attorney-General Simon Corbell has repeatedly refused to appoint a fifth Supreme Court judge to alleviate what Canberra lawyers claims are unacceptable trial delays, and would therefore seem unlikely to be swayed by arguments for a separate drug court – even though establishment under the umbrella of the magistrates court would theoretically be straightforward.
That stance would be justified if existing pre-court diversion strategies were adequate, and placements in well-funded drug treatment programs were straightforward and routine. In fact, drug treatment services in the ACT are fully stretched, with long waits for placement and accusations by providers of static or declining government funding. Burgeoning prison numbers at the AMC have forced the government to embark on an expensive enlargement, and as we were reminded on Friday, there are continual efforts made to get drugs into the prison, suggesting widespread substance abuse inside.
With all this considered, Directions ACT's wish for the government to set aside money in next month's budget for a pilot project does not appear unreasonable given the likelihood of it reducing recidivism and creating savings from having fewer people in prison.
