Why are special courts that can help drug users at risk of being scrapped?

http://www.theguardian.com/society/2014/jun/10/drug-courts-risk-being-scrapped

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Launched as a pilot programme a decade ago, dedicated drug courts were widely promoted as one of the best hopes of halting addiction-fuelled crime. According to supporters, however, specialist courts are now in danger of being disbanded through lack of official support. The West London drugs court, in Hammersmith, sits only half a day a week and is no longer staffed exclusively by specially trained magistrates.

Continuity in personnel established a relationship between justices of the peace and offenders, ensuring that behaviour was regularly assessed following conviction. Improving accountability to specialist magistrates, wise to the evasions of addicts, was seen as a key component. The dilution of such practices may seem surprising, given that the justice secretary, Chris Grayling, is a consistent advocate of the need for a "rehabilitation revolution" to curb reoffending rates.

There are many prominent enthusiasts. The former Friends actor Matthew Perry, who has himself battled addiction, was in the UK before Christmas to endorse dedicated drug courts. Max Chambers, formerly of the thinktank Policy Exchange, and now an adviser on home affairs and justice in the prime minister's office, is another fan.

One estimate suggests that more than a third of all acquisitive crime committed in the UK is drug-related, inflicting losses of nearly £14bn a year through muggings, robberies and theft.

An unrelated policy of devolving court rotas to more centralised benches, combined with cost saving in the court service, is being blamed for the changes. Significant declines in both drug use and recorded crime nationally may also explain why dedicated drugs courts no longer enjoy the political priority they assumed when Jack Straw was the Labour government's justice secretary.

Richard Monkhouse, chairman of the Magistrates Association, believes it's "all due to financial pressure".

"It's a missed opportunity. There's no real data showing these courts have been successful and that has left an assumption they are not. There's no policy saying we are shutting them down. It's just happening by default and then it becomes standard that you don't have drug courts," he says.

Penelope Gibbs, former magistrate and director of Transform Justice, agrees: "The de facto closure of the West London dedicated drugs court comes soon after the abandonment of the Liverpool Community Justice Centre. This government seems to be abandoning the very courts which offer offenders the best chance of breaking with their past."

One of those involved in the West London court says its aim is to make people drug-free. "We didn't do it that often but we did it more frequently than for people who didn't attend dedicated drug courts," he explained. "If you see the same person every six weeks there's consistency and there's a degree of trust." He had seen women turn to shoplifting or selling their bodies to pay for their addiction. But some lives, he is sure, have been turned around because addicts have been persuaded to give up entirely, rather than merely being switched to heroin substitutes such as methadone. At one stage, the court even considered expanding its workload to take in alcohol-related crimes.

Ben Estep, of the New Economics Foundation, which published a positive assessment of the West London drugs court last year, says it imposes little or no additional costs but acknowledges there has been no proper evaluation of its impact on re-offending rates.

The Ministry of Justice denies it is undermining drug courts. The justice minister, Damian Green, says: "Local experts know what works in their community and how best to tackle local issues, so we want to empower communities to support local initiatives such as the dedicated drugs courts, of which there are seven across the country.

"This is in addition to in excess of 30 courts where drug courts can also sit depending on local need. It will be for local communities to decide whether this approach is suitable for offenders in their area."