Drug Court Research Paper

The first drug court was established in Miami-Dade Florida in 1989. Drug courts were established because of the “revolving door of drug use” and recidivism. Recidivism is defined as criminals being prone to revert back to criminal behavior after being released from jail. Recidivism is very significant ito the Criminal Justice System because it shows the number of offenders that return to prison within a certain amount of time. Data shows that drug court participants are less likely to be arrested than other offenders. Approximately, 75% of drug court participants do not go back to prison until two years after leaving the program. Offenders that participate in Drug courts are usually nonviolent and suffer from substance abuse. The number of Drug courts around the world are continuously
In June 2010, there were about 2,500 drug courts that are being operated in the United States of America. By 2012, the number of drug courts increased to 2,734 that are currently operated in the united states. Drug court programs usually take between six months to a year to be completed. It is believed that offender with unmanageable addictions tends to commit about 63 crimes a year. There are offenders of all ethnicities that participate in drug courts. It is estimated that 62% of the participants in drug courts are caucasian. It is also believed that African Americans make 21% of participants around the world. Drug Courts are very significant in the court system because they have a huge impact on the offender’s life in the long run. In this paper, I will focus on the goals,successes, and failures of the Maricopa County Drug court, Baltimore City Drug Court, and the King County Drug Diversion court