Legal_St

Legal assessment 2: crime: drug courts and criminal law. What is the drug court' Since its establishment in 1999, the NSW Drug Court has undergone significant change. Amongst other things, sanctions for non-compliance with program conditions have been made more flexible, participants are now given formal warnings if they fail to progress, police have a greater role in screening for eligibility and the threshold for program termination has been reduced. This report details the results of a study designed to compare reconviction rates amongst participants in the Drug Court program with reconviction rates amongst a (statistically matched) comparison group deemed eligible for the Drug Court Program but excluded either because they reside out of area or because they had been convicted of a violent offence. Access to the drug court: So how is the drug court accessible' The main aim of the drug court is to tackle the underlying cause of involvement in crime (drug dependence or abuse) by placing drug dependent offenders on a program of coerced Under the original Drug Court Act 1998, a person was deemed to be eligible for the program if: * They had been charged with an offence that could be dealt with summarily and did not involve serious offences such drug supply, violence or sexual assault; and * It was highly likely that the person would, if convicted, be sentenced to imprisonment; and * The person pleaded guilty or indicated an intention to plead guilty; and * The person appeared to be dependent on the use of prohibited drugs; and * The person satisfied other criteria prescribed by the regulations. The other eligibility criteria set out in the regulations included the requirement that: * The offender’s usual place of residence falls within prescribed Local Government Areas in western and south-western Sydney; * The offender does not have a mental health condition that could prevent active participation in the program. Equality in drugs: Start yes No No yes No yes Enforceability of the drug court UNDEROVER POLICE: Police investigations into drug offences commonly involve the use of undercover officers who either offer a degree of encouragement to people to commit an offence, or participate in criminal activity, or both. There is no substantive defense of entrapment in Australian law. Drug court enforcement is applied through many forms, one sue which was identified already is the use of undercover police. Police also, have a variety of other possibilities in which they are able to search individuals of the possession of drugs. These are: searches, this includes sniffer dogs, search warrants to search people’s properties, Societies needs: The introduction of the frug court saw Resource effiency: A November 2008 of the drug court presents that in the 2002 evaluation, the drug court considered the first 19 months of program operation and found that “Despite the high dropout rate (about 40%) the NSW Drug Court program has proved more cost-effective than imprisonment in reducing the number of drug offences and equally cost-effective in delaying the onset of further offending.” Six years later, BOCSAR’s second evaluation came to the far stronger conclusion that “participants in the NSW Drug Court are significantly less likely to be reconvicted than offenders given conventional sanctions (mostly imprisonment).” Compared to offenders given conventional sanctions, Drug Court participants were found to be: * 17 per cent less likely to be reconvicted for any offence, * 30 per cent less likely to be reconvicted for a violent offence, and * 38 per cent less likely to be reconvicted for a drug offence at any point during the follow-up period (which averaged 35 months). Compared to offenders given conventional sanctions, participants who completed their Drug Court program were found to be: * 37 per cent less likely to be reconvicted of any offence, * 65 per cent less likely to be reconvicted of an offence against the person, * 35 per cent less likely to be reconvicted of a property offence and * 58 per cent less likely to be reconvicted of a drug offence. Dr Don Weatherburn, Director of the Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research said that the findings added to a growing body of international evidence that Drug Courts are more cost-effective than prison when it comes to reducing the risk of re-offending among recidivist offenders whose crime is drug-related. Ombudsman’s report The NSW Ombudsman’s 2006 report on the introduction of the sniffer dog legislation was that drugs were found in only a quarter of cases where the dogs had indicated the presence of drugs, which suggests that sniffer dog ‘indication’ may be of doubtful accuracy. The Ombudsman report also found that the use of sniffer dogs had no apparent effect on apprehending drug suppliers, with less than 1% of the over 2000 people found in possession after a search, successfully prosecuted for supply. http://www.bocsar.nsw.gov.au/lawlink/bocsar/ll_bocsar.nsf/vwFiles/CJB121.pdf/$file/CJB121.pdf http://www.urban75.org/legal/drugs.html http://www.bocsar.nsw.gov.au/lawlink/bocsar/ll_bocsar.nsf/pages/bocsar_pub_dtoh#drugs_and_crime http://mhcs.health.nsw.gov.au/mhdao/ http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/102200.php http://www.lawlink.nsw.gov.au/lawlink/bocsar/ll_bocsar.nsf/vwFiles/RCS08.pdf/$file/RCS08.pdf Drug arrests from 1996-97 to 2006-07, by type of drug (number per year).